A ballot initiative that would have prevented Wholestone Farms from erecting a hog plant in Sioux Falls, SD was rejected by a margin of 52 to 48 percent with 72,000 ballots cast.
Luke Minion, Chair of Wholestone Farms Board, expressed gratitude to the voters in Sioux Falls for support, noting that the proposed plant would employ 1,100 workers and process 6 million hogs annually. Wholestone Farms is owned by 200 family-farms producing hogs.
The ballot was initiated by a citizens’ group, Smart Growth Sioux Falls, that received over $1 million from POET, a biofuels company. It is difficult to understand why the Company vigorously opposed the project given that POET is a producer of DDGS fed to hogs. Obviously this was not simply a business decision and was motivated by extrinsic factors.
Approval for the plant has progressed over the past four years, culminating in the ballot initiative.