Under the Radar:
New Data Reveals N.C. Regulators Ignored Decade-Long Explosion of Poultry CAFOs
Swine & Poultry Built Pre-2008 Poultry Built 2008-2018
which produce 10 billion gallons of bacteria-laden, liquefied hog waste per year – the state’s poultry industry has grown dramati- cally with little notice. In a state long known for industrial hog production, new
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Environmental Working Group (EWG) research reveals there are now more than twice as many poultry CAFOS as swine operations in North Carolina. The news is particularly relevant as state regulators debate the terms of the state permit regulating swine waste management. If you’re setting standards for pigs, you can’t ignore the enormous recent growth of the poultry industry that has largely flown under the radar.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1997 there were 147 million birds in the state – egg-laying chickens, broiler chickens and turkeys. Not coincidentally, 1997 was also the year when a moratorium on new hog facilities in North Carolina went into effect and the legislature ordered the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs to develop a plan to phase out anaerobic lagoons and spray fields as the pri- mary methods of disposing of swine waste. Fast forward to 2018. According to EWG’s recent analysis, poultry numbers leaped to 515.3 million animals, and swine lagoons still litter the state. Our research shows that new poultry operations grew steadily across the state between 2008 and 2016, with more than 60 new operations added a year. The growth rate doubled between 2016 and 2018, with more than 120 operations added a year. In total, between 2008 to 2018, 735 new industrial-scale poultry farms were added. The expansion of industrial-scale poultry operations on the coastal plain worsens the plight of residents already suffering from hundreds of swine operations. In the two counties that are home
lthough North Carolinians’ attention has rightly been fo- cused on the state’s dense concentration of factory swine farms – concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs,
to almost half of all the swine operations in North Carolina, 82 million poultry are packed in between four million pigs. Duplin and Sampson counties have historically been the
epicenter of swine pollution, with 43 percent of all hog operations. As of 2018, they are the top two counties for poultry CAFOs, layering 762 poultry operations onto 931 existing hog operations.
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