In May, the company sued the United States, claiming that a USDA veterinarian, Yolanda Thompson, had signed inspection certificates for 4,622 slaughtered hogs at its Storm Lake, Iowa, plant on March 26, 2018. The company claimed that video footage showed Thompson hadn’t entered the plant that day, and in fact, signed those forms in her car.

Federal meat inspectors are required to visually inspect animal carcasses, to make sure they’re safe to eat.

By the time plant officials found out, it was too late to remove the pigs from production. Unable to separate them, the company said it was forced to destroy around 8,000 hog carcasses. In its complaint, it sought over $2.48 million in damages, including $1.85 million for destroyed carcasses, and $315,000 in cancelled sales.

That’s a lot of pigs, though only a fraction of the 21 million that Tyson processes every year, according to company data. As the Trump administration pursues a plan to privatize meat inspection, federal meat inspectors say they’re already understaffed, and don’t have the ability to do their jobs.

A nine-month investigation found that in some USDA districts, one in seven federal meat and poultry inspector positions were vacant, at a total of nearly 700 nationwide. That shortage forces some inspectors to cover double and triple the number of plants for which they’re normally scheduled.