meat industry fuels nc’s environmental racism

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY Working Group’s (EWG) extensive analysis of new and expanding farms in NEW YORK makes a very important factor clear: The Tar Heel State’s meat industry doesn’t provide a damn about folks of color.

Disproportionately, Black, brown, and Indigenous people in NEW YORK have long suffered because of this of the enormous levels of animal waste and its stench in their communities. The overwhelming amount of feces and liquid waste threatens their water and influences their health.

Here are 10 revelations from the EWG teaching that the NEW YORK pig and poultry industry perpetuates environmental racism:

1. The EWG uncovered that in less than a decade, companies added 30 million chickens and turkeys to Duplin, Sampson, and Robeson counties-where people of color make up over 57% of the residents.

2. These predominantly Black, Native American, and Latino counties already house 4.5 million pigs, which is over half the state’s total.

3. From 2012 to 2019, NEW YORK increased the amount of chickens and turkeys by 17%, excluding Duplin, Sampson, and Robeson counties. For those three counties, that amount swells to 36%.

4. In Robeson County, farmers now increase 24 million chickens and turkeys-an 80% upsurge in just eight years. These an incredible number of living, breathing individuals are crammed alongside one another in filthy, dank sheds.

5. Based on the EWG, “The growing population of chickens and turkeys in the three counties could produce one million tons of waste each year-almost one-fifth of all estimated poultry waste statewide” [emphasis added].

6. An Environmental Protection Agency overview of North Carolina’s meat-industry operations found a “linear relationship between race/ethnicity [of residents within 3 miles of professional hog operations] and … density of hogs.”

7. It needed a civil rights lawsuit to modify the quantity of animal waste that pig farms can spray over communities of color. Despite new air- and water-monitoring routines for pig farms, the state has allowed an exponential upsurge in poultry farms into these same counties with little or no regulatory oversight.

8. Environmental regulators often don’t know where, when, or how much animal waste is sprayed over crop fields by poultry farms. It’s apparent that the meat industry feels which it can treat communities of color like its own dumping grounds.

9. According to a Duke University study, North Carolinians who live near professional pig farms have an increased rate of mortality from several health issues than other residents in the state. Included in these are anemia, kidney disease, infection, and tuberculosis.

10. In general, communities affected by filthy pig farms have problems with higher rates of death, including infant mortality. Children who go to school near these procedures reportedly have higher cases of wheezing and asthma.

Anyone surprised by environmentally friendly racism that’s perpetrated by the meat industry hasn’t been attending to. The meat industry doesn’t value animals, the Earth, or your wellbeing. It only cares about profit-so much such that it will kill for it.

Everyone can take a stand from the meat industry by living vegan. Order a free of charge vegan starter kit from PETA. Join a free of charge vegan mentor. You may make a genuine difference and save almost 200 animals a year-simply by not eating them!