Support Family Farmers with Your Vote

Our right to farm can be impacted by elected officials at the local, state and national level. Here are some questions to consider:

• Who has a track record of supporting North Carolina farmers?

• Who will ensure that regulations aren’t overly burdensome on our farmers?

• Who supports reigning in mandates like California’s Prop 12?

• Who will promote free trade policies that support agricultural exports?

NC Commissioner of Agriculture

The Commissioner of Agriculture is one race that has a direct impact on North Carolina’ farm families.

Republican Steve Troxler, a family farmer from Browns Summit, has served as our Ag commissioner for nearly 20 years and has always been a strong advocate for family farmers. The economic impact of the agriculture industry has grown from $59 billion to $111.1 billion under his leadership.

Democrat Sarah Taber is a crop scientist and expert in food supply chains, safety, and infrastructure. She advocates for increasing the diversity of the crops we grow in North Carolina — from hemp to hazelnuts — to boost farm income. But she has called America’s love of family farms “unfortunate” and expressed concerning views (add links) about our state’s pork industry on several occasions. Taber has never held elected office.

Ripe for attack: When it comes to hog farms, nothing can appease an activist on a mission.

No matter what North Carolina hog farmers do to improve their operations, there is always an activist group eager to attack them.

Take renewable natural gas, for example.

More and more North Carolina hog farmers are interested in covering their lagoons, capturing methane emissions, and generating renewable natural gas. The benefits are immense. Aside from the environmental benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generating clean energy, the covered lagoons reduce odor and minimize the potential for flooding during hurricanes.

Sounds incredibly positive, right?

Food & Water Watch just posted an article — Shit Storms: Factory Farm Pollution, Hurricanes, and Climate Change — arguing that hog farms are “a driving force” behind climate change. It points to our farms as a major source of methane emissions, saying it leads to intense hurricanes that flood hog lagoons and cause water pollution.

Now, we can argue the facts around hurricanes and hog farms (read the truth of the matter here), but the reality is that renewable natural gas projects address the article’s two main points of concern: the potential flooding of lagoons from hurricanes, and the impact of methane emissions from animal agriculture on climate change.

But hold on… here comes another attack from the Sierra Club.

A recent story in Sierra magazine criticizes North Carolina hog farms for — wait for it — “ramping up efforts to convert methane from swine waste into biogas.”

The 3,500-word article — A biogas boondoggle — accuses the pork industry of using renewable natural gas projects to “greenwash” its image. In other words, these biogas projects on hog farms aren’t really environmentally friendly…

Except they are.

The EPA says that methane emissions are 28 times more potent that carbon dioxide, so there’s clearly a value in capturing these gases on farms and converting that gas into renewable energy that can be used to power homes.

If you’re concerned about climate change, this is clearly a positive development.

And the benefits to the local community — in the form of reducing odors and minimizing the potential for flooding during hurricanes — are equally valuable to the people who live near hog farms. (Learn more here about the value of renewable natural gas projects.)

No one really expects groups like the Sierra Club or Food & Water Watch to present a balanced view of these issues. But when you read these two articles back to back, it simply defies logic.

These activists plead with farms: Stop lagoons from flooding during hurricanes! Reduce methane emissions that contribute to climate change!

Then, when farmers make improvements that address those two concerns, they launch another attack.

 Don’t do it that way! Renewable natural gas is bad!

There’s no winning with these folks. Which is why we’re simply going to keep our heads down and continue doing what we do best: providing Americans with safe, affordable food that’s raised responsibly and sustainably.

Looking Back: The Smithfield Lawsuits

It was three years ago this month when the nuisance lawsuits against Smithfield and Murphy-Brown were settled. It came on the same day that an appeals court upheld the questionable rulings of a biased judge and the exorbitant awards of a Wake County jury located far away from North Carolina hog farms.

A lot has changed since then, and a lot has remained the same. Here are some of the highlights:

What’s Changed

• The NC General Assembly has passed legislation that preserves and protects the Right to Farm. This includes updates to the Farm Act that clarify who can sue farms for nuisance (neighbors who live within a half-mile of the farm); when they can sue (within one year of any substantial changes to farm operations); and how much they can recover (no more than the fair market value of their property). The legislation also states that punitive damages cannot be awarded if a farm has not violated their permit within the past three years. Challenges to these laws were rejected by the NC Supreme Court.

• A trial lawyer at the heart of the Smithfield litigation is currently running for the Republican nomination for Governor of North Carolina. Bill Graham is a partner at Wallace & Graham, the Salisbury law firm that spearheaded the Smithfield lawsuits and originally filed lawsuits against individual family farmers in North Carolina. “This is not just a case. This is a cause,” Graham said of the lawsuits, which sought no changes to our farms — only money.

• An increasing number of North Carolina hog farms are now covering lagoons to capture methane emissions and generate renewable natural gas. The lagoon covers reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce odors, and minimize the potential for flooding. Predictably, activist groups who frequently complain about odors and flooding are staunchly opposed to these biogas projects.  

 What Hasn’t Changed

• Attacks against the pork industry haven’t stopped. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and the Duplin County chapter of the N.C. NAACP filed a Title VI complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2021, alleging that DEQ is violating the civil rights of minorities in Duplin and Sampson counties by issuing biogas permits on hog farms. (Activist groups filed a similar complaint in 2014 regarding the issuance of  hog farm permits. That complaint was settled in 2018 with no finding of discrimination.)

• The Attacks Continue, Part II: Activist groups continue to spread false and misleading information about NC hog farms, including studies designed to raise health concerns. One example — a “study” by a Duke University professor that alleges residents who live near NC hog farms have elevated risks of disease and death. Despite the lack of  any evidence that ties health claims to hog farms — even the study’s authors acknowledge that there’s no causation or correlation — the media continues to reference flawed studies like this.

• The Attacks Continue, Part III: NC hog farms were at the center of another lawsuit against Smithfield Foods. This suit alleged that animal waste and associated odors and dust from a Duplin County farm traveled beyond the property line and were “trespassing” on the neighbors’ property. The creative attempt to get around the restrictions on nuisance lawsuits was dismissed in September 2023.

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 We know that those who are opposed to animal agriculture will continue to attack our hog farms. But, rest assured, one thing that won’t change is that NC Farm Families will stand up and speak out for our farm families. We’ll continue to sound the alarm about the legal and political threats facing our industry and work to educate residents about the positive steps being taken on our farms.