There are over 66,000 pork farms in the U.S., with an average of 1,089 pigs on each farm, and as much as one-third of that pork is exported around the world.
But that comes at a significant cost: pork production is awful for the environment, animals and the humans unfortunate enough to live near pig farms.
The largest pork producer in the U.S. is Smithfield Foods. Though it was founded and is based in the U.S., Smithfield was purchased in 2013 by a Chinese company called the WH Group, which still owns it today.
Based out of Smithfield, Virginia, Smithfield Foods has 55,000 employees — 40,000 in the U.S. and 15,000 in Europe. In the U.S., Smithfield Foods’ operation consists of around 450 company-owned farms and 2,000 contract farms spread across 15 states.
The company generated $14.4 billion in revenue in 2023, and slaughters nearly 18 million pigs every year.
All 50 states have pig farms, but they aren’t evenly distributed around the country. Most of the country’s pig farms are in either the Midwest or North Carolina, as the climates and available land in those regions are most amenable to pig farming.
Sixty-eight percent of the pig farms owned by Smithfield Foods are located in either Missouri or North Carolina, and the majority of its leased farms are in North Carolina.
The U.S. state that produces the most pork is Iowa, and it’s not even close. Nearly one-third of all pigs in the country·are raised in Iowa, and the state produced 14.3 billion pounds of pork in 2022.
With a population of 3.16 million humans and 24.6 million pigs, there are almost eight pigs for every human in Iowa.
In order, the top 10 pork-producing states in the U.S. are:
