Environmental justice, swine production and farm loss in North Carolina

Since the early 1990s, North Carolina has been the fastest growing swine-pr oducing state in the country and the leading innovator in vertically integr ated industrially structured hog farming. Although the growth and concentra tion of swine production has been associated with a host of negative social and environmental impacts on the state's air, land, and waterways, environ mental justice and farm loss concerns have played a particularly key role i n the evolution of the controversy in North Carolina. Using multivariate an alysis of statewide census and agricultural data, we identified the county- level sociodemographic characteristics associated with farm loss between 19 82 and 1997. We found that recent patterns of farm loss were more pronounce d in Black communities, regardless of income, and low-income communities, r egardless of race. Furthermore, counties that had greater hog industry grow th in the early 1980s and had large hog populations by 1992 have suffered g reater farm loss since the early 1980s than counties where the hog industry growth did not intensify until more recently. The implications of these fi ndings with reference to an expanded environmental justice framework regard ing the discriminatory impacts of swine facilities on minority and low-inco me rural communities are discussed.