Summary
While this article focuses on the plight of North Carolina residents living in close proximity to industrial hog farms, in general it outlines how factory farms damage the surrounding environment and create issues negatively impacting the health and well-being of residents living nearby, who also tend to be people of color. Quotes from interviews with local residents highlight how these issues affect them on a daily basis. Improper waste management by factory farms is identified as a significant contributor to these issues due to the feces and urine from the thousands of animals confined in these facilities. This article describes how this waste seeps into the groundwater and pollutes drinking wells and is sprayed from a hose onto nearby fields creating noxious odors that prevent residents from enjoying the outdoors. The article also describes how state policies and government regulations tend to work in favor of these industrial farms and let them get away with polluting the air and water at the expense of local communities, largely due to the overwhelming political and economic influence of the agricultural industry in North Carolina. Overall, this article calls attention to the environmental racism posed by industrial animal farms, as they are often situated in marginalized communities that have little control over the environmental risks posed by such operations, and details the predatory business practices of these industries, as well as the government’s inaction to protect local communities and the environment.