December 17, 2025

 

Tyson not renewing contracts for poultry growers in northwest Arkansas, US watershed

 

 

Tyson Foods said it won't renew contracts for US poultry growers in northwest Arkansas' Illinois River watershed amid an ongoing pollution lawsuit by Oklahoma's attorney general against Tyson and other poultry companies like Simmons Foods, Cargill, George's, and more.

 

Oklahoma filed the lawsuit in 2005, claiming that Arkansas poultry companies were responsible for polluting the Illinois River watershed with phosphorous from chicken waste.

 

In the years since, northwest Arkansas poultry farmers have improved their management of poultry litter, decreasing its land application, and increasing its export out of the Illinois River watershed, which both states have taken steps to better protect.

 

Despite agreements and concessions from poultry companies and farmers, legal negotiations have failed, and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is now going against the wishes of his state's governor and pushing for a judgment from the court demanding US$100 million in penalties from poultry companies. Arkansas farmers said it's not fair.

 

"Farmers in the Illinois River watershed have done everything that both states, the state of Arkansas, and the state of Oklahoma, have asked of them," said Cheyenne Holliday, a poultry farmer for Tyson in Washington County.

 

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said it's an overreach of Drummond's authority.

 

"What he wants to do is impose Oklahoma's will over in our state. That's bizarre, and that ultimately will harm farmers," Griffin told KATV.

 

Faced with uncertainty around the lawsuit, Tyson has informed its over 50 farms in Benton and Washington County — the leading poultry-producing counties in the state — that it won't renew their contracts.

 

"Family farms like ours have received verbal confirmation that we will not have our contract renewed. There are several families that will owe millions of dollars to the bank still," Holliday told KATV. "The scary part is if Tyson is going to start pulling contracts, what would make Simmons want to pick up a farm like ours."

 

And that could mean the end of many large poultry farms in the northwest corner of the state. State Sen. Bryan King, a poultry grower himself, said that could impact Arkansas consumers.

 

"Ultimately this is going to impact our economy," King said. "It's going to impact the individual growers. It's going to impact the consumers. When you go to Chick-fil-A or you go to McDonald's or you go to the grocery store, it is produced mostly by individual farmers."

 

- KATV