The Western Organization of Resource Councils has been an unrelenting grassroots critic of Big Ag for decades. Now its members want to enlist urban eaters in the fight.

The residents of Devils Lake, North Dakota have seen huge changes in recent years. The lake the town is named for has quadrupled in size over the last two-and-a-half decades, flooding thousands of acres of farmland. As a result, many of the farmers in the area have had to trade in their tractors to run campsites and other tourism businesses along the expanding waterfront.

So when a farming family in a neighboring township applied for a permit for a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) last year, many Devils Lake residents were up in arms. The proposed farm is a hog “multiplier” that would supply up to 44,000 piglets a year to other large hog farrowing operations. It would also require keeping around 2,000 sows on hand at all times.