Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
This has enabled them to organize at the county level to both stop hog farms and pass local health ordin-
ances.
Meanwhile, as family farmers were fighting Smithfield in the Midwest during the 1990s, the company
was seeking to find sources for hogs in the East. It was also refining its strategy for becoming vertically in-
tegrated—for controlling production from genetic research and breeding to packaged pork chop. In 1992,
Smithfield entered into a joint venture with the North Carolina-based Carroll Foods, the fourth-largest hog
producer in the United States. In 1999 it acquired the company outright, becoming the largest hog producer
in the world. 32
This sealed North Carolina's fate as the number two hog-producing state in the country today. North
Carolina's 11 million hogs create the stench, sewage, and sickness that are the trademarks of the industry.
In one animal factory located in the state, 2,500 pigs produce 26 million gallons of liquid waste, 1 million
gallons of sludge, and 21 million gallons of slurry (a thin mixture of water and manure) per year. 33 The
waste is then sprayed onto nearby agriculture fields, widening the area affected by the toxic chemicals.
These manure cesspools emit noxious odors into the surrounding communities. The stench has been
known to nauseate pilots at three thousand feet in the air. 34 The odor affects the quality of life for people
living in the rural communities near these facilities, many of whom can no longer hang out their laundry
to dry, sit on their porches, or even open their windows. Even worse, residents experience a wide range
of health problems, including asthma, allergies, eye irritation, and depressed immune function, along with
mood disorders, such as heightened levels of depression, tension, anger, fatigue, and confusion. 35
The burden of these facilities is concentrated in some of North Carolina's most impoverished areas.
Nearly two thirds (61 percent) of the factory-farmed hogs are located in five eastern counties. 36 One study
found that the state's industrial hog operations are disproportionately located in communities of color and
in communities with higher rates of poverty. 37
Hog farming has always been an important part of North Carolina's agriculture. North Carolina, where
intense hog production increased significantly during the 1980s, embodies the risks created by the rapid
rise of big pork-packing companies and factory farms. In the 1990s, lenient environmental regulations and
local zoning exemptions attracted corporations like Smithfield and Premium Standard Farms, which trans-
formed the state into a pork powerhouse. After Smithfield and PSF merged in 2007, Smithfield controlled
an estimated 90 percent of North Carolina's hog market. 38 The state now has more hogs than people. 39
But as the hog population surged, the number of farms plummeted more than 80 percent, as factory
farms drove traditional farms out of business. In 1986, North Carolina had 15,000 hog farms, but by 2007
just 2,800 remained. 40 The state's hogs produce 14.6 billion gallons of manure every year. 41
North Carolina's waters have been polluted repeatedly by waste from hog factory farms. The public
first became aware of problems with the lagoon and spray field system in 1995, when a lagoon burst and
released 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. 42 Lagoon spills were responsible for sending
1 million gallons of waste into the Cape Fear River and its tributaries in the summer of 1995, 43 1 million
gallons into a tributary of the Trent River in 1996, 44 and 1.9 million gallons into the Persimmon Branch
in 1999. 45 Hog waste was also the likely culprit for massive fish kills in the Neuse River in 2003, when at
least 3 million fish died within a two-month span. 46
Perhaps the most infamous example of the environmental dangers of hog factories occurred in 1999,
when Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina. The storm flooded fifty lagoons and caused three to burst, lead-
ing to the release of millions of gallons of manure and the drowning of approximately 30,500 hogs, 2.1
million chickens, and 737,000 turkeys. 47
In 1997 North Carolina established a moratorium on building new hog waste lagoons, and in 2007 the
legislature made the ban permanent. 48 Unfortunately, this doesn't affect existing lagoons. Watchdog groups
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