Restructuring of Hog Farming in North Carolina: Explosion and Implosion

Abstract

Over the past six years hog farming in North Carolina has undergone a significant restructuring. For most of this century raising hogs was a casual farm activity found throughout the state. During the past decade hog farming has been transformed along industrial-corporate lines. In the process, the swine population has expanded rapidly (exploded) and simultaneously collapsed in geographical bounds (imploded). This paper examines the linkage between the development of the industrial-corporate hog farming regime, the rapid growth in hog populations, and the geographical concentration of hog production in a newly emerging high-density hog production district in the south central area of the Coastal Plain region.

PARASITOLOGY AND SEROLOGY OF FREE-RANGING COYOTES (CANIS LATRANS) IN NORTH CAROLINA, USA

“…Our results are consistent with previous surveys of coyotes that failed to detect antibodies to B. abortus (Trainer and Knowlton 1968;Gese et al 1997) and B. canis (Holzman et al 1992;Gese et al 1997;Bischof and Rogers 2005). However, the North Carolina swine industry expanded rapidly in the 1990s (Furuseth 1997), commensurate with the expansion and establishment of coyotes in most parts of the state (Parker 1995;DeBow et al 1998). Brucella suis has not been investigated in coyotes, and the simultaneous expansion of coyote populations, swine production, and feral swine (Sus scrofa) presence represented a novel disease risk with economic implications.…”

Environmental injustice and the Mississippi hog industry.

“…Corporate hog operations in many agricultural states like Mississippi tend to locate facilities on the basis of economic factors such as the sociopolitical structure of the host communities and contiguity to other related operations, slaughterhouses, transportation routes, and infrastructure (22,46). Various economic, political, and institutional factors are important in the siting of hog CAFOs.…”

The Wages of Food Factories1

“…At the state level, the picture is equally bleak. Wendell Murphy, widely credited with pioneering contract hog production, served five terms in the North Carolina legislature, where he spearheaded legislation to exempt swine and other livestock producers from local zoning regulations (Furuseth 1997). So successful were efforts to boost the industry that the number of hogs in North Carolina shot from 2.6 million in 1988 to about 10 million in 2000, second only to Iowa.…”