Confidential U.S. Farm Data May Have Been Released into the Wrong Hands

National Pork Producers Council “Extremely Troubled” Over New Findings

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

There is nothing worse than confidential information slipping into the wrong hands. This may have been the case in the United States where the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) learned that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had released some personal information of U.S. hog farmers along with other livestock and poultry producers. It’s believed that some of the information was given to two activist groups who may now have confidential business data for a number of U.S. farms.

Several activists groups including: the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Earth Justice and the Pew Charitable Trusts requested information under Freedom of Information Act. It’s been learned that the EPA earlier this month released raw data from farms in 30 states; and it’s also believed that in some of those cases the information that was provided included home addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses as well as information on employees of farm operations.

The NPPC released a statement on Wednesday expressing concern over this recent discovery. “The release of data containing personal and confidential information is extremely troubling; we feel betrayed,” said NPPC President R.C. Hunt, a hog farmer from Wilson, N.C. “We are very concerned for farmers and with the ability of those opposed to modern livestock and poultry farms to manipulate that data to advance their extremist agenda.”

The NPPC is the voice for over 67,000 hog producers in the United States.