The latest misleading, mistake-filled attack on North Carolina’s family farmers comes from Vox, an online news outlet with a mission to “explain the news.”
After listening to a 30-minute podcast that takes aim at how we raise our pigs, it seems like we’re the ones who need to explain a few things to Vox.
The podcast, eloquently titled “pig poop lagoon,” features the same cast of activists, making the same tired arguments about our farms. This piece takes particular issue with the lagoon and sprayfield system and features plenty of complaints about odor.
As farmers, we’re the first to admit that farms have an occasional smell. But some people claim the odor is always present, or that it is so overpowering that it’s nearly impossible to leave home.
We know what it’s really like to live next to a hog farm.
But don’t take our word for it. Look at the results of an air quality study conducted in Duplin County this year by the NC Division of Air Quality. They collected 15 months of data and found that there was no significant air quality issues.
You can also read how people with no agenda describe the smell on our farms.
When a reporter visited a Bladen County farm in 2017, here’s what he said: “Upon stepping out of a vehicle, the first thing one might notice is the absence of something — an aroma. There was no odor. Of any kind. None.” Other reporters have described odor as “almost negligible” or as “a light barnyard smell.”
To make its case, the Vox podcast dredges up an old study on odor that was conducted by a UNC professor who described himself as a “committed activist.” It spends two full minutes talking about the study but fails to give listeners the most important piece of data — the participants reported no odor or very faint odor more than 80 percent of the time and strong or very strong odors only two percent of the time.
This is what the data collected by our harshest critics found. (Click here to read more about the flaws with that study.)
Vox is a Latin word meaning “voice,” but this podcast represents only one voice. That of the activists who want to put an end to animal agriculture.
Over the course of the 30-minute podcast, Vox devotes a grand total of 22 seconds to the viewpoint of our farmers and our industry. No surprise that they failed to adequately capture our perspective.
One example: Vox notes that the pork industry took issue with a study about the demographics of who lives near North Carolina hog farms, but fails to tell listeners the truth of the matter: Census data shows that 68 percent of hog farms in North Carolina are in areas where African-American residents make up 30 percent or fewer of the population, and only 13.5 percent of hog farms are located in communities where a majority of residents are African-American.
The podcast also tries to raise health concerns about living near hog farms. But you don’t hear from any medical experts, and certainly no one like Dr. Keith Ramsey, the medical director of infectious disease control at Pitt County Memorial Hospital and former chairman of the Pitt County Board of Health.
Dr. Ramsey has conducted studies involving residents across eastern North Carolina and specifically looked at any association between health outcomes and our farms. His conclusion: “I have observed no indication that living near a hog farm causes any increased risk of infection by antibiotic-resistant or any other bacteria... The real health threats needing attention in eastern North Carolina are diet and lifestyle... not hog farms.”
We could go on and on, but we need to get back to the farm. We have pigs to raise and millions of families to feed. And we’ll continue to do it in a caring and responsible way.