"Maybe it's just an issue of the times in which we live in which so many people want certain things but they don't want the inconveniences that go with them," said Chris Young, executive director of the American Association of Meat Processors.

Nickerson fought against Georgia-based Lincoln Premium Poultry, which wanted to process 1.6 million chickens a week for warehouse chain Costco. It was a similar story in Turlock, California, which turned down a hog-processing plant last fall, and Port Arthur, Texas, where residents last week stopped a meat processing plant. There also were complaints this month about a huge hog processing plant planned in Mason City, Iowa, but the project has moved ahead.

The Nickerson plant would have helped area farmers, who mostly grow corn and soybeans, start up poultry operations and buy locally grown grain for feed, said Willow Holliback, who lives 40 miles away and heads an agriculture group that backed the proposal.

"When farmers are doing well, the towns are doing well," she said.

The question of who would work the tough jobs was at the forefront of the debate, though many were adamant they aren't anti-immigrant. Opposition leader Randy Ruppert even announced: "This is not about race. This is not about religion."