In 2013, Shuanghui International (now known as WH Group), the top meat producer in China, acquired Smithfield for $4.7 billion, the largest takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese buyer. Smithfield thus began its long battle against being labeled as a "Chinese" company.

Meanwhile in Eastern Carolina, large-scale hog farming operations grew as contract growers for Smithfield's subsidiaries.Their open-air hog waste lagoons and manure sprayfield haunted neighbors with odor and pollution. Some say the Shuanghui-Smithfield deal put America at the lowest rung of the supply chain, with China getting clean pork while leaving the waste in North Carolina.

In the second episode of the "Caught in the Crossfire" series, we took a deep dive into the hog waste problem in North Carolina, which long existed before a Chinese company took over but is now in its hands.