Environmental Defense
North Carolina Office
2500 Blue Ridge Road, Suite 330
Raleigh, North Carolina 27607
November 2000

This report shows that pork producers can afford to replace outdated lagoons with new systems for managing harmful hog waste and concludes that new technologies will increase pork production costs by only pennies per pound and will better protect the environment and public health. The report also calls on the NC General Assembly and the state Environmental Management Commission to mandate the phase out of open-air lagoon systems on hog farms and calls for corporate hog producers that own the hogs to be held responsible for environmental problems. 

Table of Contents:   Major Findings   Executive Summary: Hog Waste Pollutes and Lowers Quality of Life For North Carolina's Citizens Who Pays For the Environmental Damages From Hog Waste Pollution_ Environmentally Superior Alternatives are Available and Affordable Switching to Alternative Technologies is Economically Feasible Contract Farming Has Afforded Integrators Substantial Economic Gains. Policy Recommendations Conclusions   Acknowledgments   About the Authors     Download full Adobe Acrobat version (959 KB PDF file) About Adobe Acrobat Reader

Major Findings

The bad news: North Carolina has a problem. 

• North Carolina's 10 million hogs produce more than 50,000 tons of feces and urine every day. That's 20 million tons a year – more waste than is produced annually by residents of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles combined. 
• North Carolina taxpayers spend millions of dollars each year to regulate and clean up the environmental impacts of hog and other animal waste in the Coastal Plain. 
• North Carolina citizens who live downwind and downstream of hog farms are paying even more – through lower property values and diminished health and quality of life.
• Major pork companies do not help pay the management costs of their contract growers, even though the companies own the hogs.

The good news: There are affordable solutions we can implement today.

• Environmentally superior alternatives to the lagoon and sprayfield system are ready for commercial-scale testing today – and they are affordable.
• The switch to environmentally superior waste management technologies will cost mere pennies per pound of pork.

Acting now will not hurt contract growers.

• North Carolina pork producers benefit from some of the lowest production costs in the nation.  Switching to environmentally superior waste management technologies will not affect their competitive edge.
• Why_ Because major pork companies have made record profits over the past several years. Their contract growers earn one-tenth of what they do. Now is the time for major pork companies to help their contract growers cover the cost of switching to alternative waste management technologies.

Read the press release for Dollars and Sense: An Economic Analysis of Alternative Hog Waste Management Technologies Hog Industry Question and Answers Fact Sheets: Estimated Costs of Alternative Manure Management Technologies Integrator Liability

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