Like it or not, North Carolina is famous for its pig farms. And like it or not, hog farming gets a bad rap.
According to professor Todd See, head of the Animal Science Department, North Carolina is the second largest producer of pigs in the country, just behind Iowa.
North Carolina has quite a meat processing plants and about 2,700 hog farms, according to See.
“We raise about $10 billion worth of hogs every year,” See said. “Most of the pig farming is located in eastern North Carolina, the vast majority in Samson and Duplin counties.”
Hog farming took off in North Carolina after tobacco started to decline due to evidence tobacco products cause cancer.
“In the 60s , when a lot of these tobacco reports were coming out, one thing that was looked for was, ‘how do we diversify these farms?’,” See said. “When they knew tobacco was going to be reduced in terms of share of agriculture in the state, hogs were one of the things a lot of people looked at. So it was a steady increase in hog production from that point forward.”
Bladen County’s Smithfield operating plant is the home of the world’s largest meat processing plant. Constructed in 1992, the facility processes about 8 million hogs per year.
Ashleigh Phillips, senior in English literature at Meredith College, said her uncle raised hogs on his farm in Northampton County.
“He grew soy beans, corn, not as much tobacco as he used to, just about everything you can imagine, and then he would have hogs on the side,” Phillips said.
In that part of the state, hog farms are not as popular as chicken farms, Phillips said, but she knew a few other farms that raised pigs
According to Phillips, the flooding of Hurricane Floyd of 1999 turned some farmers away from the pig industry.
“After Hurricane Floyd, we didn’t have as many [pig farms],” she said. “There was a big hog farm in the area, and after Hurricane Floyd, they went to chickens.”
Hurricane Floyd caused massive flooding in North Carolina, drowning livestock and causing pig waste lagoons to overflow into nearby rivers and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean.
Kevin Kearney, a senior in environmental science, said he’d heard about the disruptive effects of hog waste on the environment.
“It’s very difficult to protect soil and water and surround areas from hog lagoons,” Kearney said. “The biggest issue I’ve heard in the news is hurricanes, like Floyd, pick it up and put it in a place that can really disrupt the environment. Hog manure contains a lot of nutrient-abundant substance, like nitrogen, and it can end up in places where it can’t reenter the soil in a good way.”
The hog farming industry has learned from past environmental situations, according to See.
“There are and have been concerns or issues raised around water quality and runoff water and things, but there have been a lot of changes over the years as we’ve learned about technology in manure treatment,” See said. “There have been cases where accidents have happened, but the procedures are in place now. It doesn’t really occur as much today.”
These new procedure include the education of farmers, installations of new technologies, and the management of hog manure.
“Every farm that has over 250 pigs on it, that’s most of the hog farms, has to have a permit that’s issued by the state,” See said. “They’re inspected twice annually to make sure they follow guidelines on how manure and things are handled on that farm.”
All farmers are required to take a training course to renew their certification to operate the environmental systems on their farms, See said. One of the aspects that goes along with that is by law, hog manure cannot leave a farm.
The manure from hogs is often used as fertilizer by the farmers who raise them, according to See.
“It’s all basically agronomically applied back onto crops,” See said. “So that’s one reason these pigs are owned by farmers. Because they’re engaged in raising corn and soy beans and hay and other things and they use manure as a fertilizer. So it’s part of the farming system.”
Hog manure has been used not only as fertilizer, but as a source of methane for electricity production. According to See, farmers are capturing methane from manure and generate electricity and providing it back to utility companies.
“It’s become part of the green energy system as well,” See said.
The conditions on hog farms are not without controversy. From the livestock perspective, the animals are kept indoors year round, a circumstance that has both negative and positive aspects, according to See.
“I think one of the debates from an animal standpoint is, should they be confined in a building like that? And there are positives and negatives to that,” See said. “On the positive side, the animals do have a controlled environment. They’re always comfortable and protected from the elements. They’re allowed to be healthier. They get a little better individual management.”
However, this comfort may be a loose term. The Humane Society confronted Smithfield with an investigation of its pork production, and revealed harsh living conditions in one of their farms in Virginia. In the report, the Humane Society unveiled how Smithfield housed sows in gestation crates. In 2007, the company made a public statement to end the practice within 10 years, but during the recession, said they had to reinstate the practice due to the economy, according to the Humane Society.
Though the public eye abhors factory farming, See said housing the hogs also makes management of their waste more practical and safe.
“Farmers have the ability to actually collect the manure, and make sure that it’s not getting into the environment,” See said. “If they were all outside, rain and water would runoff and things like that would become a bigger concern.”
On the negative side, on large farms, the pigs spend all their time indoors, not getting any outside experience. They aren’t able to perform some of their natural behaviors. In See’s works, “They don’t get that same interaction from rooting.”
On bigger farms, the farmers work in these same houses. According to See, the industry has become fairly technology driven. Farmers have automated feeding systems, and they spend a lot of time working with individual animals.
However, the job can be very hazardous in some cases. Phillips said she knew a farmer who lost his legs from a machinery accident on his hog farm.
“I knew a family; there were a ton of kids in the family. They were always struggling with money, finances. They had pig farms, and their dad got injured on the job, actually working with some of the equipment in the houses. Then after that, the whole family moved and disappeared, and we never heard from them anymore. That’s where all their income was coming from,” Phillips said.
The state has invested in the University, under its land-grant credo, to improve the state of hog farming in North Carolina. Researchers in the Microbiology Department are looking to improve swine health to pathogenic microbes and the Animal Science department is investigating improving swine nutrition and waste management.
The U.S. consumes 64 pounds of pork per capita annually, according to the USDA, so North Carolina’s industry seems quite set. However, there may be indications of improving conditions for both the pork industry and the state as a whole; the State Bureau of Investigation is cracking down on farmers who disregard waste policies. Since the 1990s, the Neuse River, formerly highly contaminated by hog waste, has improved in water quality with the help from the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation. That may be news to pig out on.