Crowdsourced *ism:
An Oink to Boycott the Hog Industry [1]

by Devan Patel

Site Description:

North Carolina is a top producer of turkeys, chicken, and hogs in the United States. Hog farmers in North Carolina store hog waste in lagoons and then spray the liquified waste onto open fields. The practices that the hog industry practices are not sufficient to protect the environment both at the sites and away from them since waste and toxins drift via elements. My research focuses on how the consequences of the industry disproportionally affect minorities. In addition to that, it attempts to find out what policies, economic incentives and practices helped the hog industry prosper in Duplin County, North Carolina in order to help my reader understand whether minorities were neglected and left out of the decision making process. Understanding the answer to this question will help formulate a more comprehensive understanding of what environmental injustice is and reinforce the key points to identifying environmental injustice by analyzing yet another site that is surrounded by minority. The argument concludes that those who purchase these products and know about these inequalities are also practicing environmental injustice and racism.

Author Biography:

My name is Devan Patel, a student at New Jersey Institute of Technology studying Computer Science. My motivation for taking this course in environmental justice comes primarily from the desire to learn more. I was initially introduced to the topic by my friend, who was kind enough to shed light on human rights and animal cruelty issues. She provided various examples, one of which was brought to life in What the Health, a documentary that discusses the negative consequences of meat eating and meat production. The filmmaker of the documentary, Kip Anderson, interviews Rene Miller, who lost several family members to diseases that disproportionately affect the African American community in Duplin County, N.C. My research focuses on the struggles faced by residents of Duplin County, N.C. as a consequence of the practices of the hog industry and argues that the industry continues its behavior knowingly.

Final Report:

It was 2004 and appeared to be an ordinary day at Hormel Foods Corporation’s processing facility in Fremont, Nebraska. Like any other day, the line, jeweled with sleeping hogs, raced across Maria Lopez and her co-worker. Her partner was feeding pig shoulders to a spinning saw and Lopez was gathering and bagging the trimmed fat to go into Spam. Though Lopez had been doing this every day, she was struggling to keep up with the speed of the line, which had recently been pushed up from 1,000 pigs per hour to more than 1,100. As her co-worker reached for another arm, Lopez rushed to clear the cutting area, and her fingers drifted towards the saw and she screamed as she saw the gushing blood and her finger, which hung by a flap of skin. After having her finger surgically reattached and returning to work, Lopez came to the realization that the cut line continued at the same speed.

Workplace injuries, like the one experienced by Lopez, were not rare at meat processing facilities; people who work at any meat-packing plant have a 50 per cent chance of suffering a serious injury. Corporations increased the rate of injury, along with production, by having workers do more work in the same amount of time. For example, the speed of Hormel’s production lines had increased by 50 per cent in 5 years but the number of workers on the line only increased by a mere 15 per cent. Interestingly, much of the workforce at these meat-packing plants is made up of Hispanics, many of whom are illegal immigrants and fearful of reporting harsh working conditions and injuries. [2] Aside from exploiting Hispanics for labor and subjugating them to harsh working environments, large corporations like Hormel Foods have had a leading role in the injustices committed against African American locals and hogs. [3]

Journalists have written about the harsh conditions in which meat-packing facility workers work in and the discrimination they face, the ill consequences of animal agriculture disproportionately faced by African Americans who live close to hog farms, and the adverse impact of animal agriculture on the climate. Columnists have written about the interconnected nature of how the interconnected nature of the experiences of animals and humans but only in op-ed pieces. [4]

Unlike most other writings on the intersection of animal agriculture and environmental racism, this essay is attentive to the environmental injustices faced by not only Hispanics and African Americans but also hogs. It explains the environmental injustices by examining the interconnected nature of the physical and mental experiences of people and hogs. It shows that the unequal treatment of people based on race, class and ability has its roots in the unequal treatment of life based on species. It argues that the consumer of goods derived from the supply chains that the animal agriculture industry participates in is as equally responsible for environmental inequality and racism as the industry.

The essay begins by providing a brief historical background on subsistence hog farming in North Carolina, including the shift towards commercialized and contractual farming and a summary of some of the well-known consequences of factory farming, such as foul odors and vast waste, asthma, dwindling property value, threat to water quality and marine life, and the lack of accountability. In addition, the paper extends on the story of Lopez by providing an account of some of the inequalities faced by workers and how a large company that produces and processes pork illegally and unjustly tried to hinder unionization of its workers. It also discusses the inequalities faced by those who live close to hog farms and attempts to amplify the voices of some residents who have publicly raised their voice. [5] Furthermore, it discusses the inequalities faced by the hogs, compares them to those faced by minorities, and draws the connection between racism, classism, ableism, and speciesism. In the last section of the essay, the role of the consumer in subjugating sentient life to environmental injustice is proved and boycotting is shown to be an effective solution by providing historic accounts.

People have been raising hogs in the Northeast since colonial times for subsidence. However, the commodification of hogs had a rough patch in history, and it was not until the second half of the 20th century that it reached economic success. It was William W. Shay, an accomplished hog breeder from Michigan, whose arrival to North Carolina changed hog culture in the United States. When federal funding for agricultural extension began under the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, Shay was chosen to head North Carolina’s program to encourage farmers to produce healthier, more profitable animals.

During his appointment, Shay traveled the state to observe local farming methods and was disappointed to find few farmers producing hog for commercial markets. Moreover, he considered the traditional methods of raising hogs, which involved fattening hogs by gleaning soybean and peanut fields to be “uneconomical practices” of swine husbandry. He developed a five-step systematic program, called “Shay Method”, that he believed would profit farmers and in turn, increase hog production and export.

Unfortunately, William Shay died in 1937, possibly believing that his method would not be widely adopted. And though the method was largely a failure for at least 23 years after his death, when agricultural transformations made self-sufficient, small-landholding family farms unproductive, most farmers moved towards crop specialization and local agricultural agencies once again advocated for hog production. Many farmers found full-time swine husbandry to be attractive due to the suitable climate, relative ease of operation conversion and higher market prices. As a result, hog farming as a business in North Carolina grew consistently from the late 1960s till the late 1980s. The growth was supplemented by the conversion of many tobacco farmers after the U.S. surgeon general’s announcement in 1964 about the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. [6]

Unlike the two previous decades when hog population grew linearly, the decades since the late 1980s have brought exponential growth, which now ranks the state second in the nation for hog inventory. [7] However, the exponential growth cannot be completely accredited to the “Shay Method” since one of its tenets, which called for animals to have proper housing and sanitation, was not adopted by agriculturalists. Extensive research suggesting farmers should build large-scale, indoor production sites was only partially adopted by agriculturalists with the caveat that hogs should be raised in total confinement and in small holding pens, barely larger than the bodies of the hogs. This, they believed, would be optimal as it would require less land and labor to produce more hogs. However, raising hundreds of pigs in a crowded and enclosed area had its own challenges. For example, hogs often caught and spread diseases, and farmers had to kill diseased hogs and place their farms on quarantine to comply with federal agriculture policies.

Wendell Murphy of Rose Hill, North Carolina was the first in the state to adapt the concept of contract farming to hog agriculture to diversify his holdings and to protect himself from the fluctuations of the market. Murphy shifted towards a contact-based model when a cholera outbreak in 1969 forced him to shut down his operation. He was successful and ran Murphy Family Farms, the largest pig producer in the country. Seeing his success, some other farmers in the Down East also shifted to contract farming and found success and stability.

The economic success of the hog industry, driven by large scale contract farming of hogs in indoor, crowded production facilities came with disadvantages. Small farmers were driven away by the intense capitalization of the hog industry and small landowners found it too difficult to penetrate the highly competitive pork market. [8] As hog production grew, it became more and more true that only large-scale producers and economies of scale could have successful hog operations in North Carolina.

Recall the incident that Lopez was involved in at Hormel Foods Corporation’s processing facility in Fremont, Nebraska. As mentioned earlier, workplace injuries at animal slaughtering and processing facilities are not rare and in fact, according to a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the injury and illness rate is two and a half times than for the U.S. industry and about 69 per cent of injuries are never reported. [9] This should not be surprising if we consider the fact that workers have long working hours without breaks and high production quotas. At this point, the attentive reader may suggest that workers should unionize and push for fair hours and reduced production quotas.           

That is exactly what some groups of workers have tried to do. However, many of those groups have failed to unionize as a result of intense propaganda and fear financed by the pork industry’s political and economic power. Many of the groups that are now unionized faced terror for years before success. For example, in 1946, when United Packinghouse Workers of America attempted to unionize P.D.  Gwaltney’s 80 per cent Black workforce. The publisher of the Smithfield Times formed an anti-union committee, ran anti-union ads, and sent Gwaltney employees anti-union postcards. The publisher called a meeting at which Remmie L. Arnold, president of the Southern States Industrial Council and opposer of the New Deal, recalled incidents of Ku Klux Klan terrorism to instill fear. Worst yet, days before the union vote, the county sheriff told a union representative that the city was “way behind in lynching around here. We haven’t had a lynching in about 20 years.” On voting day, the sheriff and the police chief situated themselves in front of the warehouse where the voting was taking place. The union lost the vote 85 to 27. [10]

Workers are not the only people facing conscious environmental injustice. Those that live nearby hog operations face the brunt of the environmental degradation caused by the hog industry. While human waste is properly transported and treated, hog waste is first stored in cesspools and then sprayed onto open fields without treatment. Common sense says that the elements must carry the mist and the stench to nearby homes, cars, and waterways.

Violet Branch, an African American woman in her 70s, has lived in Duplin County since she was 3 months old. She recalls how one day pigs came over on school buses and then eventually, they started to come on 18 wheelers. Naeema Muhammad, member of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, describes how one woman “would get up in the morning, crack her door open – just a little bit – and see if its stinking outside. If it’s not stinking, she go out and do what she has to do but she’s rushing to get everything done because she wants to beat the odor.” Another resident of the county, Elsie Herring, says “Well, they’re polluting my air and other’s – everyone that’s living near these facilities. They’ve polluted our water. They’ve disrupted our quality of life. They’re affecting our health, our mental status. The embarrassment that comes along with this – the sense of helplessness and hopelessness. All of these things, we have to deal with on a daily basis.” [11]

Dr. Steven Wing, who worked as a professor at The University of North Carolina at Chaplin Hill, collected permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and pinned all hog operations on the state’s map. The map clearly showed that the majority of the hog operations in the state were concentrated in the east and specifically in areas predominantly populated by African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. [12] This constitutes as an example of environmental racism not because African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are victims of the conscious degradation of the environment but rather because there was no valid scientific reason to build operations in Eastern North Carolina. According to Dr. Joann Burkholder, a professor at North Carolina State University, the water table is only 3 feet and the eastern portion of the state does not do a good job at absorbing all the liquid waste. Residents and scholars believe that the hog industry was attracted to Duplin County because the county was populated predominately by African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans – people who they knew had limited economic and political power to exercise against the injustices of the hog industry. [13]

However, to conclude that an environmental injustice has its roots in environmental racism, it is not sufficient to only draw a correlation claiming that a particular race or ethnicity disproportionately bears the brunt of the damages. It is necessary to identify intention via explicit or implicit evidence. This is exactly what Kemp Burdette and his colleagues from Cape Fear River Watch and Waterkeeper Alliance did when they took a single-engine plane to survey hog farms in Duplin County.

The aerial image portrays a hog farm in Duplin County, N.C., which like many others, stores liquid hog waste in cesspools to be eventually sprayed on nearby homes. Much of the American population has minimal to no knowledge about the scale and practices of the animal agriculture industry and therefore, the image helps enhance the understanding of environmental injustice in Duplin County as well as in postwar America by bringing the audience to the site from above as observers. [14]

On September 1, 2016, as Tropical Storm Hermine was approaching North Carolina, Kemp Burdette, and his colleagues from Cape Fear River Watch and Waterkeeper Alliance took a single-engine plane to survey hog farms in Duplin County with the objective of identifying environmental violations and collecting evidence. This image and the images from the same collection were produced to be presented to the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in hopes that concrete evidence would pressure the agency to act. However, the DEQ told Burdette that the GPS-stamped images did not serve as sufficient evidence for any act of violation and that they could not use proof collected by others. In addition, the DEQ does not have funds to do its own aerial surveillance and could only depend on the farms’ self-reported spray logs – ensuring that the farms would go unpunished for malpractices that negatively impact communities.[15]

The proximity of the cesspools to the buildings that is home to hogs implies that the industry is perfectly okay with hogs swimming and potentially drowning in their own waste. Comparing the distance between those buildings and the cesspools and the distance from the cesspools and irrigation sprays (circled in white) to the home situated in the upper right of the image, it is obvious that the industry makes no conscious effort to not practice speciesism.

In the lower right of the image (circled in blue), it can be observed that the landscape is going through an unnatural pattern of balding. In other words, a patch of trees has been cut to make additional space for the farm and it is likely that when there is a need for even more space, the industry will not hesitate to focus efforts to pushing homeowners away. In fact, when residents that live near hog farms complain about the detrimental consequences of how waste is managed and disposed by the farms, the industry and its supporters suggest that the residents move. However, moving is not a viable option for many as they have either financial constraints or emotional attachment to the home. [16]

Moreover, zooming into the image to look at the home discussed earlier, it can be observed that the residents have a cesspool of their own (circled in orange). When considering the vicinity of the home with the irrigation spray and with some understanding about the concept of erosion, we can conclude that the liquid waste contributes to the water level of the swimming pool. The contribution does not stop there. The stench is unbearable, the mist brings out sores and propagates deadly diseases. [17]

The victims of the hog industry are not only humans and obviously include the hogs being raised for slaughter. Hogs begin their life in a farrowing crate, a small pen with a central cage designed to let piglets feed from their mothers. The farrowing crate makes sure that the mother is unable to move. Occasionally, piglets get crushed under the weight of their mother while she is struggling to move. Piglets are mutilated to reduce cannibalism and tagged for identification. In addition, pigs that are sick or are not lean enough are considered by the industry to be “economically unviable” and killed on spot – often far from “humanely” and right in front of the other pigs. Once piglets no longer need to feed from their mothers, they are moved into grower pens where they are crowded together in their own waste. In these grower pens, they are so desperate and frustrated that they try to eat each other. Moreover, male pigs are masturbated by workers to collect semen and then female pigs are “artificially inseminated”. Occasionally, male pigs are used to excite the female pigs but the two are not allowed to mate. During their pregnancy, pigs are placed in sow stalls barely larger than their bodies. [18]

In 2016, Sharee Santorineos, a breeding technician at Eagle Point Farms wrote a three-page letter to the Illinois Bureau of Animal Health and Welfare describing the mistreatment of hogs. She wrote “I seen pigs that are pregnant beat with steel bars. I seen them kicked all over their body.” Other workers have said that their supervisors authorized punishment to speed up “lame or unwilling pigs.” “He’d kick them,” said Kelly Shannon, a former employee of a Professional Swine Management confinement in western Illinois. [19]

How we threat animals reflects on our humanity and how we treat other humans who are different than us in race, class, ability, ethnicity, or the language they speak. For example, in a similar way to how Jewish people were gassed in chambers, pigs too are killed via exposure to concentrated levels of toxic gas. Holocaust survivor Alex Hershaft believes that history is repeating itself and “makes the case that by not fighting for animal’ rights, our behavior is akin to that of German citizens who did nothing to stop the mass murder of Jews and other minorities.”

Hershaft became an animal rights’ activist after encountering piles of discarded animal parts while investigating a Midwestern slaughterhouse during his employment at an environmental consulting firm. He recounted the moment at an event organized by pro-veganism group and shared “I noted with horror the striking similarities between what the Nazis did to my family and my people, and what we do to animals we raise for food: the branding or tattooing of serial numbers to identify victims, the use of cattle cars to transport victims to their death, the crowded housing of victims in wood crates, the arbitrary designation of who lives and who dies — the Christian lives, the Jew dies; the dog lives, the pig dies.” [20]

Moreover, recall that hogs that are sick or not lean are considered “economically unviable.” In other words, these pigs are objectified. This philosophy compares starkly with our treatment of disabled people and people that are not considered beautiful by current standards. We, for some reason, find it acceptable to mock those that are not disabled by calling them disabled, implying that disability makes people inferior. In addition, we mock those who are not beautiful by current standards by body shaming them and correlating their worth with their physique.

Stepping back into history, we can imagine the similarities between how African American people were treated and how hogs are treated at factory farms; I won’t go into the details as to respect the people who have suffered and still have open wounds. These comparisons are not requested to determine which injustices are worse but rather to bring attention to the fact that groups of humans have previously treated groups that they believed were inferior unjustly and in a similar way to how we threat animals. The point is that if we can respect the autonomy of animals, threat them justly and acknowledge our relationship with them, we can all understand that no life is better or worse than another. Proponents of the survival of fittest philosophy may suggest that we must look after ourselves first and I agree with the caveat that we do not need to factory farm animals to survive and prosper.

At this point in the essay, you may either agree with me to some extent and are wondering how you can make a difference or think that there is nothing that you can do. However, if you consume meat and dairy products, you can help change the status quo by not doing – by not participating in the injustices enacted upon humans and animals. Corporations like Hormel Foods and Smithfield Foods depend on revenue generated from sales of their meat and dairy products to operate and if consumers do not buy those products, the scale at which they operate will decrease due to limited operating capital. If enough people boycott the industry, the industry may also lose its existence in the near future.

History has shown that peaceful boycotting is effective. In response to lawsuits and the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted 381 days, the court ruled segregation illegal in public transportation. [21] In 2006, immigrant led, one day boycott called Day Without an Immigrant showed the whole nation the important role that immigrants pay in the American economy, schools, and public offices. [22] In British India, Mohandas Gandhi led the Salt March to protest British rule in India; India is now an independent nation. [23]

Lopez’s incident is not an isolated one and many workers have faced debilitating injuries while working at processing and meat packing facilities. The animal agriculture industry did not always look the same and for centuries since the colonial times, people raised animals for subsistence. The shift towards raising animals in large, crowded indoor facilities came in the latter half of the 20th century and created a gap in our understanding of the reality of animal agriculture.

People who have heard about the mistreatment of animals and the use of growth hormones have moved towards “free range”, “humane” and organic meat and dairy product – not knowing that “free range”, “humane” and organic are simply marketing terms that try to put blinders on our eyes. In reality, the victims of “humane” agriculture include both animals and people. More specifically, these victims are predominantly the animals, Hispanic workers like Lopez and African Americans like Branch, Miller, and Herring. Hog operations are disproportionately concentrated in African American rural neighborhoods to avoid the economic and political power of White and/or affluent communities. [24] In addition, blue collar work at hog operations is primarily carried out by Hispanic workers who are fearful of reporting workplace injuries and injustices due to their illegal status in the country or fear of being fired. [25]

The modern-day treatment of farm animals has a stark resemblance with the treatment of groups of people in the past and present. Certain groups of people have historically been under the misconception that they are superior to another group. The essay argued that the treatment of people based on race, class and ability has its roots in the unequal treatment of life based on species. Moreover, it made a case for boycotting the animal agriculture industry by not consuming meat and dairy products. Such a boycott has shown the potential to completely change the landscape of the industry and at the very least, reduce the damage that it does to the environment, people, and the animals. [26]


[1] *ism covers topics such as racism, classism, sexism, ablelism.

[2] Ted Genoways, “’I Felt like a Piece of Trash’ – Life inside America’s Food Processing Plants,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, December 21, 2014), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/21/life-inside-america-food-processing-plants-cheap-meat.

[3] Gary Marx and David Jackson, “Whipped, Kicked, Beaten: Illinois Workers Describe Abuse of Hogs,” chicagotribune.com (Chicago Tribune, August 5, 2016), https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-pig-farms-abuse-met-20160802-story.html.; “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[4] Jacey Fortin, “After Meat Workers Die of Covid-19, Families Fight for Compensation,” The New York Times (The New York Times, October 6, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/business/coronavirus-meatpacking-plants-compensation.html.; Jacey Fortin, “After Meat Workers Die of Covid-19, Families Fight for Compensation,” The New York Times (The New York Times, October 6, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/business/coronavirus-meatpacking-plants-compensation.html.; Brady Dennis, “Changing Climate Imperils Global Food and Water Supplies, New U.N. Study Finds,” The Washington Post (WP Company, August 8, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/08/08/solving-climate-change-requires-fixing-forests-food-landmark-un-report-finds/.; Erica Hellerstein and Ken Fine, “A Million Tons of Feces and an Unbearable Stench: Life near Industrial Pig Farms,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, September 20, 2017), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/20/north-carolina-hog-industry-pig-farms.

[5] Barry Yeoman, “Here Are the Rural Residents Who Sued the World’s Largest Hog Producer over Waste and Odors – and Won.,” Food and Environment Reporting Network (Food and Environment Reporting Network, December 20, 2020), https://thefern.org/2019/12/rural-north-carolinians-won-multimillion-dollar-judgments-against-the-worlds-largest-hog-producer-will-those-cases-now-be-overturned/.; Anne Blythe, “Jury Awards More than $25 Million to Duplin County Couple in Hog-Farm Case,” News Observer (Raleigh News & Observer, June 29, 2018), https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article214096384.html.

[6] Thompson, Michael D. “This Little Piggy Went to Market: The Commercialization of Hog Production in Eastern North Carolina from William Shay to Wendell Murphy.” Agricultural History 74, no. 2 (Spring, 2020): 569–84.

[7] Thompson, Michael D. “This Little Piggy Went to Market: The Commercialization of Hog Production in Eastern North Carolina from William Shay to Wendell Murphy.” Agricultural History 74, no. 2 (Spring, 2020): 569–84.; “State Rankings by Hogs and Pigs Inventory,” Pork Checkoff (The National Pork Board, June 14, 2018), https://www.pork.org/facts/stats/structure-and-productivity/state-rankings-by-hogs-and-pigs-inventory/.

[8] Thompson, Michael D. “This Little Piggy Went to Market: The Commercialization of Hog Production in Eastern North Carolina from William Shay to Wendell Murphy.” Agricultural History 74, no. 2 (Spring, 2020): 569–84.

[9] Lynn Waltz, Hog Wild : The Battle for Workers’ Rights at the World’s Largest Slaughterhouse (Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2018).

[10] Lynn Waltz, Hog Wild : The Battle for Workers’ Rights at the World’s Largest Slaughterhouse (Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2018).

[11] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[12] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[13] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[14] Kemp Burdette, _59A9281, 2016, 5472 x 3648 px., 9.1.16 Cape Fear River Watch and Waterkeeper Alliance Investigation, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.flickr.com/photos/waterkeeperalliance/albums/72157672119077560.

[15] Barry Yeoman, “Complaints Disappear and Reappear, but the Awful Stench from NC Hog Farms Remains,” Charlotte Observer (Charlotte Observer, August 29, 2019), https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article234482987.html.

[16] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[17] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[18] Chris Delforce, “Dominion (2018) – Full Documentary [Official],” YouTube (Dominion Movement, October 9, 2018), https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko.

[19] Gary Marx and David Jackson, “Whipped, Kicked, Beaten: Illinois Workers Describe Abuse of Hogs,” Chicago Tribune (Chicago Tribune, August 5, 2016), https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-pig-farms-abuse-met-20160802-story.html.

[20] Josefin Dolsten, Cnaan Liphshiz, and Stephen Silver, “Holocaust Survivor Likens Treatment of Farm Animals to Modern-Day Shoah,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 26, 2017, https://www.jta.org/2016/10/06/united-states/holocaust-survivor-likens-treatment-of-farm-animals-to-modern-day-shoah.

[21] “Montgomery Bus Boycott,” History.com (A&E Television Networks, February 3, 2010), https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott.

[22] Holly Yan and David Williams, “’Day Without Immigrants’ Shuts down Businesses,” CNN (Cable News Network, February 17, 2017), https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/us/day-without-immigrants-vignettes/index.html.

[23] “Salt March,” History.com (A&E Television Networks, June 10, 2010), https://www.history.com/topics/india/salt-march.

[24] “On the Road in Duplin County: Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina,” YouTube (Farm Sanctuary, April 5, 2018), https://youtu.be/ZFzDpUUecw8.

[25] Ted Genoways, “’I Felt like a Piece of Trash’ – Life inside America’s Food Processing Plants,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, December 21, 2014), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/21/life-inside-america-food-processing-plants-cheap-meat.

[26] Dorothy Musariri, “How Veganism Is Affecting the Meat and Dairy Industries,” NS Business, August 20, 2019, https://www.ns-businesshub.com/science/how-veganism-is-affecting-the-meat-and-dairy-industries/.

Primary Sources:

Title: Jury awards more than $25 million to Duplin County couple in hog-farm case

Location: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article214096384.html

Description: The source helps strengthen my argument that the animal agriculture industry knowingly neglects the harmful consequences of their practices faced by locals. Also, the fact that the jury came to the decision to award $25 million in repercussion serves as evidence that the locals have a strong case.

The news article covers the decision of a jury in North Carolina against Smithfield Foods and to award 500 local residents a total of $25 million in repercussion. The lawsuits focused on the Smithfield Foods’ “continued use of ‘anaerobic lagoons’ in which hog waste is stored behind livestock pens, then liquefied and sprayed onto nearby fields”. The droplets and odor tend to travel through air and become a nuisance and health hazard to residents and therefore, lawyers claimed that the practice is a public nuisance – to which the jury agreed. However, politics and the animal agriculture industry are married, and the pork industry receives some level of government protection against valid lawsuits.

In the article, Ryke Longest, the director of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is quoted: “Neighbors with active cases can still pursue these claims. But the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the North Carolina Farm Act last week to cut off access to our courts for neighbors who suffer nuisance conditions caused by large swine farms.” Despite valid claims of local residents about the nuisance caused by the practices of the hog industry, government officials in the state made it difficult for residents to file a claim for legal justice probably due to fear of economic loss and political support. In addition, the state law caps punitive damages, ensuring that Smithfield Foods loses no more money what a negligible amount to it may be. The intentional negligence of Smithfield Foods’ is amplified by the reporting since there are better ways to dispose hog waste that eliminates or at the very least, minimizes the damage caused to locals. Longest contends “new technologies can eliminate ammonia emissions, odors, pathogens and reduce the risk of spills and discharges to groundwater which always exist with lagoons and spray-fields.” However, Smithfield Foods puts profits above people’s right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by arguing that changing the technology would be too costly.

Title: On the Road in Duplin County – Meet Your Neighbors in North Carolina

Location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFzDpUUecw8

Description: The source introduces environmental racism and presents internal perspectives, which I can use to support my argument. It also stresses that those who buy the products are also supporting the practices that are destroying the quality of life and health of people who live near the farms which supports my claim that the responsibility extends beyond corporations and governments.

In August 2017, Leilani Munter visited eastern North Carolina to observe the living conditions in Duplin County and interview locals. The video starts off with several locals contrasting their early life in Duplin County, which was primarily joyous and peaceful, with the current situation of the quality of their lives. Leilani rides and flies around Duplin County to capture footage and to bring transparency to the practices of the hog industry. The interviews also shed light to the detrimental health effects of constantly being exposed to hog waste.

Rick Dove, who is part of Waterkeeper Alliance, begins his interview by sharing how there were many and healthy fishes in the waters near Duplin County, NC as compared to recently, when he observed that many fishes were washed up to the shore with opening, bleeding lesions and the crabs started having holes in their shells. Elsie Herring, a Duplin County resident shares that the facilities bring helplessness and hopelessness and are polluting the air and water and consequently, disrupting the quality of life, health, and mental status of locals. Rene Miller and Violet Branch are two residents of the county whose asthma has evolved while living near hog farms. Naeema Muhammad, a member of the Environmental Justice Network, refers to Dr. Steven Wing’s research, which indicates that hog farms are mainly concentrated in eastern North Carolina. In other words, they are mainly concentrated where African Americans live and therefore, is an example of environmental racism. Larry Baldwin, the Crystal Coast Waterkeeper, and Rick Dove say that those who purchase products that come from these farms are contributing to the injustices.

Title: After 15 Years, North Carolina Plant Unionizes

Location: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/us/13smithfield.html

Description: This article helps strengthen my arguments about the hog industry’s value for profit over the quality of human life. It provides internal perspectives of hog factory works and external perspectives that hindered and propelled unionization.

The article covers the successful unionization of workers at the world’s largest hog-killing plant, the Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, N.C. The unionization is pivotal in ensuring fare treatment of workers and adequate compensation who are primarily African American and Hispanic. After many years of fighting for unionization, United Food and Commercial was able to unionize due to the court’s supervision over the election.

The United Food and Commercial was not able to unionize earlier because the hog industry instilled fear in minority union supports. As evidence, take the court order to Smithfield to reinstate four union supporters that were illegally fired, one of whom was beaten by the plant’s police on the day of the 1997 election for unionization. Moreover, Hispanic workers were not on board with unionization due to fear that stemmed from their unfair treatment and their differences. Ms. Victoria, a worker who helps cut off hog tails at the plant in Tar Heel, N.C. said, “A lot of Hispanic people were scared to support union, sometimes because of the language, and sometimes because they feel they don’t get the same treatment like the people who speak English.

Secondary Sources:

Thomas Fleischman. 2020. Communist Pigs: An Animal History of East Germany’s Rise and Fall. Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Thomas Fleischman’s book discusses the fundamental role that three types of pigs played in the German Democratic Republic’s attempts to create and sustain a modern, industrial food system built on communist principles. It features the myriad of unintended consequences, including manure pollution, animal disease and food shortages, that occurred as a result of the shift from a culture of family owned farms to industrial agriculture.

CLARK, DOUG BOCK. 2018. “A Crap Deal for Duplin County.” Rolling Stone, no. 1309/1310 (March): 38–56.

Clark and Doug Bock explore the economic and environmental consequences of the acquisition of Smithfield Foods by Chinese company WH Group. In addition, the authors identity and examine the reasons behind WH Group’s decision to outsource its pork production to Duplin County, NC. The authors stand their ground that the deal is horrible for the United States and that China, a country that is growing rich, looks to outsource agricultural practices that are harmful to the environment and people’s health.

“Cesspools of Shame: How Factory Farm Lagoons and Sprayfields Threaten Environmental and Public Health.” 2001. Policy File. Natural Resources Defense Council.

The work documents how animal waste from factory farms has a negative impact on the environment and how it is a threat to human health. It discusses how most factory farms store animal waste (in large open lagoons that frequently burst). The manure leaks into waterways from lagoons that burst, spreading microbes that cause gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure and even death.

Image Analysis:

The aerial image portrays a hog farm in Duplin County, N.C., which like many others, stores liquid hog waste in cesspools to be eventually sprayed on nearby homes. Much of the American population has minimal to no knowledge about the scale and practices of the animal agriculture industry and therefore, the image helps enhance the understanding of environmental injustice in Duplin County as well as in postwar America by bringing the audience to the site from above as observers.

On September 1, 2016, as Tropical Storm Hermine was approaching North Carolina, Kemp Burdette and his colleagues from Cape Fear River Watch and Waterkeeper Alliance took a single-engine plane to survey hog farms in Duplin County with the objective of identifying environmental violations and collecting evidence. This image and the images from the same collection were produced to be presented to the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) in hopes that concrete evidence would pressure the agency to act. However, the DEQ told Burdette that the GPS-stamped images did not serve as sufficient evidence for any act of violation and that they could not use proof collected by others. In addition, the DEQ does not have funds to do its own aerial surveillance and could only depend on the farms’ self-reported spray logs – ensuring that the farms would go unpunished for malpractices that negatively impact communities.

The proximity of the cesspools to the buildings that is home to hogs implies that the industry is perfectly okay with hogs swimming and potentially drowning in their own waste. Comparing the distance between those buildings and the cesspools and the distance from the cesspools and irrigation sprays to the home situated in the first quadrant of the image, it can be said with some confidence that the industry makes its best effort to not practice speciesism. 

In the fourth quadrant of the image, it can be observed that the landscape is going through an unnatural pattern of balding. In other words, a patch of trees have been cut to make additional space for the farm and it is likely that when there is a need for even more space, the industry will not hesitate to focus efforts to pushing home owners away. In fact, when residents that live near hog farms complain about the detrimental consequences of how waste is managed and disposed by the farms, the industry and its supporters suggest that the residents move. However, moving is not a viable option for many as they have either financial constraints or emotional attachment to the home.

Moreover, zooming into the image to look at the home discussed earlier, it can be observed that the residents have a cesspool of their own. When considering the vicinity of the home with the irrigation spray and with some understanding about the concept of erosion, we can conclude that the liquid waste contributes to the water level of the swimming pool. The contribution does not stop there. The stench is unbearable, the mist brings out sores and propagates deadly diseases.

The image summarizes the reality of how hog farms operate in postwar America. People desire to live in healthy and positive environments and those that live in environmentally degraded areas are generally bounded there by their financial situation. Those living in the homes near the hog farm have a lower quality of life and see their health deteriorate daily. The intentional and disproportionate negligence of the industry and politicians stems from the age-old habit of quantifying the value of life based on color, gender, sexual preference and the number of legs and wings. At the beginning of every fiscal year, when the privileged sit together to do a cost benefit analysis, again and again the profits of the hog industry in the United States of America outweighs the livelihood of minorities.

Data Analysis:

Oral Interviews:

Video Story: