The last state standing against corporate farming weighs a change

This isn't the first time Schilz has attempted to overturn the CLMA. Last year, the senator introduced a bill that would have overturned the packer ban on cattle as well as hogs. That bill died in committee after farmers, ranchers, and advocates testified for over six hours against it. LB 176 would not lift the prohibition on packers owning hog farms, but it would allow corporations to own hogs and then contract with independent farmers to raise them. Rather than sell those hogs in an open market, the famers would receive a fee for their services. The bill “says packers … can own pigs if there’s a producer that keeps and feeds them,” explains John Crabtree of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyon, Nebraska. “The problem with that, of course, is that it’s a shell game.”