Chicago

SMITHFIELD Food Inc, the world's biggest pork producer, is buying grain elevators and purchasing grain directly from farmers, a move that hits grain handlers already reeling from multi-year lows in corn and soya bean prices.

The Virginia-based company bought two Ohio grain elevators last September. For the first time, it can ship grain directly from Ohio to feed the pigs that Smithfield slaughters at its Tar Heel, North Carolina, packing plant - the world's largest, processing about 32,000 hogs daily.