Smithfield Sells Missouri Farmland

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (DTN) -- Smithfield Foods sold a former Premium Standard Farms sow farm in north-central Missouri's Sullivan County at auction earlier this month. The 1,371-acre farm with a mix of farmland, pasture and woodland sold in 10 tracts for $5.64 million, or $4,160 per acre.

Missouri cropland values averaged $4,910 per acre and pasture values $2,650 per acre in 2024, according to USDA's Land Values 2024 Summary.

"Interest was extremely strong," said Jeff Propst, a land specialist at Whitetail Properties Real Estate, who oversaw the listing. There were 22 online bidders and more in-person than he could recall. In the end, the buyers -- a husband and wife, a partnership, and a collection of Amish buyers -- were all in attendance.

While the property on its own is interesting with 653 tillable acres, a 27-acre lake, timber draws, pastures and ponds, it also has an interesting past and an uncommon seller.

Propst said the property is an old Premium Standard Farm sow farm and has been out of production for some time. The confinement buildings were torn down, and a deed restriction will prevent hog production or confinements on the property in the future.

At its peak, Premium Standard Farms was the second-largest pork producer in the country, expanding rapidly using a model that relied on ownership of the supply chain from the farmland up. The highly leveraged pork producer struggled with commodity market swings and earned a reputation for lagoon spills and nuisance lawsuits.

Smithfield Foods acquired Premium Standard Farms in early 2007, settled the lawsuits, fixed the labor and environmental problems and operated as the Smithfield Hog Production Division, under the Murphy-Brown of Missouri legal entity.

Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International, which is now WH Group, acquired Smithfield Foods in 2013. That same year, the Missouri legislature lifted the total ban on foreign farmland ownership, allowing up to 1% of the state's farmland to have foreign owners.

In 2022, Murphy-Brown of Missouri owned 42,172 acres in state, according to a report by the Missouri Department of Agriculture. All but 7,000 or so acres are located in Sullivan, Mercer and Putnam counties where Smithfield Hog Production is located.

This sale represents about 10% of Smithfield's holdings in Sullivan County, assuming it hasn't made other sales since the Missouri Department of Ag issued its report. In total, 0.43% of Missouri's farmland is owned by foreign entities. China owns 36% of all the land owned by foreign entities or citizens.

In August of 2023, Smithfield announced plans to shutter 35 hog farms in northern Missouri, including many in the region where this property is located. Smithfield did not return DTN's request for comment on the history of the property, when it was last in production or factors driving the decision to sell.

Premium Standard Farms Auction Listing: https://ranchandfarmauctions.com/…

Missouri Department of Ag report on Foreign-Owned Agricultural Land: https://s3.documentcloud.org/…

USDA's Land Values 2024 Summary report: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/…

Katie Dehlinger can be reached at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com

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