Roy Cooper, who served as attorney general from 2001 until he took office in 2017, referred questions about pork lagoons to the State Department of Environmental Quality and former prosecutors for information on the status of the Smithfield agreement during his tenure as attorney general. Officials promised change and provided a plan in the year 2000. The focus was on an agreement with Smithfield Foods, the world`s largest pork producer and one of North Carolina`s largest companies. Smithfield agreed to fund the search for alternatives to lagoons and to implement, within three years, any system that would prove to be environmentally efficient and economically viable. Instead of open-air lagoons, a newer, safer system would allow North Carolina to update itself in commercial agriculture. In the end, the agreement allowed legislators to avoid the chaotic work of defining restrictions on a politically influential industry, and instead transferred that responsibility to academics. When initial research did not reveal a silver bullet, the demand for change faded as the country faced a severe recession and North Carolina`s policy shifted to the right. A conservative activist challenged the deal in 2016 in court and said The North Carolina Constitution requires money from civil penalties, forfeitures and fines to belong to public schools. The appeal was then taken up by the school board of the district of Neu-Hanovre. On July 25, 2000, in the midst of the governors` campaign, Smithfield reached an agreement with Easley to find better technologies for the management of waste from the company`s pig farms in the state. Smithfield has committed a total of $17 million to research at North Carolina State University in other waste management methods and has agreed to install the chosen technology on its farms. The company has also committed $50 million over the next 25 years to public environmental protection programs.

The 2000 agreement required the company to provide an additional $15 million to help develop waste treatment methods to replace pork lagoons. Lagoons remain a routine method of storing waste today. Under the 2000 agreement, Smithfield pays $1 per hog he owns in North Carolina, up to $2 million a year, or about $50 million. The agreement is valid until 2025. Erwin stressed that he did not believe that an Attorney General had the authority to conclude such an agreement. For their part, senior officials currently elected in North Carolina are not on hold to answer questions about the Smithfield agreement. Finally, PSA discontinued the price formula agreed by the parties for market hogs, which was deducted from the average daily price of live hogs in the Iowa South Minnesota spot market. The agreement provided that the parties would replace a new basis for the diversion of the average final price when the Iowa-South Minnesota spot market “is no longer a viable market.” September 2010: Premium Standard Farms enters into an agreement with the Missouri Attorney General that gives the company until July 31, 2012 to complete the installation of Next Generation Technology on its farms. Until July 31, 2012, the company will install barns in the 366 barns classified as the smell control of the stable by the management consulting team. Since 1999, the company has spent approximately $40 million to implement improved environmental technologies, including lagoon covers and land enforcement technologies.