Sometime in my life (I think my teenage years) my family stopped using the term Smithfield Ham when we wanted what was a tradtionally reared (peanut fed) and smoked "Smithfield" ham and started calling them Virginia hams. Maybe because when the Smithfield company went global the hams were not the same.
A 1926 Statute of Virginia (passed by the Virginia General Assembly) regulates the usage of the term "Smithfield Ham" by stating:
Genuine Smithfield hams [are those] cut from the carcasses of peanut-fed hogs, raised in the peanut-belt of the Commonwealth of Virginia or the State of North Carolina, and which are cured, treated, smoked, and processed in the town of Smithfield, in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
So what happened? How is it that the description Smithfield can be used on hams not produced in Smithfield? Is there a peanut belt in Mexico now?
Labor at Smithfield Packing - As of April 2006, Smithfield had approximately 52,500 total employees, 22,500 of whom are covered by collective bargaining agreements. At Smithfield's pork plants, 18,000 of the approximately 31,800 employees are unionized—about 56%. The U.S. Court of Appeals and the National Labor Relations Board have found that Smithfield has engaged in a systematic pattern of labor rights violations.