By Carey Gillam
ELWOOD, Kan., Sept 14 (Reuters) - Small-town America is rolling up the welcome mat for big agribusiness.
That's what Seaboard Farms, a unit of agricultural giant Seaboard Corp., discovered this summer as it searched for a home for a mammoth new U.S. pork processing facility.
In an agreement secured late last month, Seaboard finally wooed and won the acceptance of the tiny town of Elwood, Kansas for a planned $130 million hog slaughterhouse slated for construction on about 140 acres of farmland. The 600,000-square-foot plant would employ about 2,300, according to Seaboard, and handle 16,000 hogs a day.
City leaders in Elwood, population 1,400, tout the deal as the richest opportunity in the town's 144-year history. But the plant has been a hard sell.
Leaders of St. Joseph, Missouri, located three miles across the river from Elwood, flatly rejected Seaboard's overtures there, saying worries about air and water pollution, and fears that a low-income, migrant workforce would put a burden on schools, housing and health care, made Seaboard's plant undesirable.
NOT THE FIRST TO SAY "NO"
St. Joseph followed Bellevue, Nebraska and Pottawattamie County, Iowa in letting Seaboard know it was not welcome.
Seaboard's experience demonstrates what is shaping up as a new trend in rural America. Even some economically depressed towns desperate for jobs and investment are not desperate enough to welcome the U.S. meat-packing industry.
Only five years ago when it opened a similar-sized pork processing plant in Guymon, Oklahoma, residents were so eager for the 4,000 promised new jobs that they anted up $8 million as an incentive to Seaboard.
"Now communities are not as eager," said Iowa State University economics professor Neil Harl. "There is a trend by communities to take a very close look at installations of this nature. Resistance is growing."
Elwood Mayor Jim Rader said his town drove a hard bargain. "We're not paying for anything and they're paying for everything," he said.
City projections show increased tax revenues generated by Seaboard should allow for a rollback in taxes on Elwood residents and could reduce property taxes on an average home almost in half.
PORK SANDWICH PICNIC
Seaboard officials have treated the town of 1,400 to a pork sandwich picnic in the park, passed out Seaboard hats, and mailed plant details to each household. Company officials promised new air conditioning for the high school and pledged to keep hogs awaiting slaughter indoors to reduce odours.
To cover concerns that the plant's work force would overwhelm Elwood's tiny school system, which currently handles just 300 students, Seaboard agreed to pay $3,000 per student if enrollment grows by more than 10 percent annually.
And the company has agreed to pay Elwood $1 million in lieu of taxes to make up for deferred tax revenue gains for the city for the first three years while the plant is being built.
Seaboard officials have said that the state-of-the-art new plant will hire locally rather than bring in immigrants, protect the environment with extensive waste-water treatment facilities, and pay workers enough -- $10.38 an hour -- to avoid straining social services.
"From the community standpoint I think they drove a good bargain," said Seaboard spokesman Gary Reckrodt. "We are dealing with different economic times now and we understand that. People have a lot of concerns. You have to come in and be very open."
SOME LOCALS STILL OPPOSED
Despite Seaboard's efforts, many townspeople in Elwood remain unhappy about sharing their close-knit community with the pork processing plant. Though city leaders have already given the project a green light, opponents from throughout the area have joined forces to picket Seaboard's Merriam, Kansas headquarters and hire an attorney to evaluate legal actions.
Protesters fear the plant would create a host of woes, from sewage problems and air pollution to slums and increased crime.
"We don't believe anything they say," opponent Ann Thorne said of Seaboard. "It's a nasty business. It's just not what you want in your community."
Seaboard's Reckrodt said much of the opposition stems from outdated notions of meat-packing that no longer apply.
"This is not your father's packing plant. It is a food production plant," he said. "When people drive by it I don't want people to say 'there's a smelly old packing plant.' It's going to be a showcase facility.
"There is a small number of people who will not be convinced," Reckrodt continued. "At some point in time we just have to agree to disagree.":
