| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| How China Is Destroying American Farmland-And Getting All The Best Ham And Bacon! |
| 2023-07-18 |
| [EpochTimes] In 2014, hundreds of residents filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the WH Group, arguing that the hog farms “made life unbearable.” Smithfield lost the five bellwether cases and settled the remaining cases out of court. Still, while sending a message of discontent, it doesn’t change how hogs are raised in North Carolina or anywhere else in the United States. North Carolina is the home of more than 2,000 large-scale hog farms, primarily clustered in the rural eastern region of the state. As illustrated in the Vox video above, factory-scale hog farming takes a tremendous toll on the surrounding environment, as hog excrement ends up polluting waterways, land, and air. More than 200 of these North Carolina hog farms are owned or operated by Smithfield Foods,1 the largest pork producer in the world, which in 2013 was acquired by the WH Group, a Chinese pork conglomerate that has been accused of feeding its hogs illegal chemicals.2 But as reported by Rolling Stone magazine in 2018, that wasn’t the only safety concern raised by the sale:3 “The Chinese government had a track record of using nominally private entities as proxies for state power … In 2011 … the government issued a plan directing Chinese companies to buy foreign food producers and farmland. In two years, Chinese nationals went from owning $81 million worth of American farmland to nearly $1.4 billion … CHINA DUMPS ITS AGRICULTURAL WASTE IN THE US In years past, the United States outsourced dirty industry processes to poorer countries. Today, China is doing the same, and it’s treating the United States as a developing nation. Granted, U.S. environmental policies—which have gotten increasingly lax over time due to regulatory capture by industry—are what allow for this “hostile takeover” in the first place. Believe it or not, China doesn’t allow hog waste to be sprayed on fields as a means of disposal, as is routinely done here in the United States. In China, hog farmers are forced to spend big bucks on wastewater treatment, digester systems to convert manure into natural gas, and odor control systems to shield nearby residents from the stench.4 All of that makes pork about twice as expensive to produce in China than in the United States. Usha Haley, a professor at West Virginia University who has studied the Chinese takeover of American agricultural assets for well over a decade, told Rolling Stone:5 “China will not care about the health of people living beside the hog farms. China will act in its own self-interest to leave the pollution here but take the valuable clean pork back to China.” One year after Smithfield was gobbled up by the WH Group, 500 residents filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the company, arguing that the hog farms “made life unbearable.”6 By early 2020, five of the lawsuits had gone to trial, and Smithfield lost them all. In each case, the jury unanimously concluded there had been an “unreasonable and substantial interference with the reasonable enjoyment of the [plaintiff’s] property.”7 In all, Chinese-owned Smithfield was ordered to pay $550 million in damages, later reduced to $98 million due to a state cap on punitive damages.8 According to Corporate Crime Reporter, Smithfield settled the remaining cases out of court.9 Still, while sending a message of discontent, it doesn’t change how hogs are raised in NC or anywhere else in the United States. HOG FARMS WREAK HAVOC Thousands of pigs are kept permanently indoors in these industrial “farms,” known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Urine and feces are piped outside into a giant open lagoon, and when the lagoon gets full, the waste is sprayed onto nearby fields. As explained in the VOX video above: “Spraying and lagoons have air quality risks. When bacteria breaks the waste down, it releases hundreds of compounds, like methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and dust into the air. These can cause asthma, respiratory diseases, headaches, and nausea.” Indeed, several studies have concluded that living near CAFOs has a detrimental impact on health. For example, one 2018 study by Duke University found that people living in close proximity to hog CAFOs have:10
The massive amounts of hog waste produced by these industrial farms also pollute well water and surface water with nitrates, phosphorous, and fecal bacteria, which in turn contributes to algae blooms that kill fish and can cause life-threatening illness in humans. The largest cluster of hog farms in NC also happens to be located in a coastal floodplain, which further heightens this water pollution risk, as storm flooding washes the hog waste into the surrounding ecosystem. Residents living near hog farms also must deal with dead hog carcasses that attract flies and buzzards. As noted by Corporate Crime Reporter,11 “The cheapest way of disposing of hogs is to throw them out into the open hot air.” So that’s what most of the farms do. Sometimes these temporary disposal areas are right beside a private residence. Every few days, a truck will come by to pick up the carcasses, which are then transported to processing plants that use them for dog food and other products. BIOGAS PERMITS WILL FURTHER IMPACT UNDERPRIVILEGED RESIDENTS You’d think this kind of pollution would be curbed by the federal Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations, but that’s not the case. As noted by Vox, the EPA primarily regulates only the largest concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Besides, getting rid of hog waste by spraying it on fields is perfectly legal, even though nearby residents end up getting showered with fecal matter on a regular basis and can’t open their windows or even their mouths when the wind blows in their direction. And now, their situation may get even worse. In 2021, North Carolina regulators authorized four Smithfield-owned CAFOs to convert their animal waste into biogas fuel by installing anaerobic digestion systems, all without conducting a comprehensive impact analysis or including air and water mitigation requirements. This development is what led to the most recent Civil Rights Act complaint, filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) against the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).14,15 As reported by NC News Online:16 “SELC alleges that when DEQ granted the general permits to the Smithfield-owned farms, the agency failed to protect the surrounding communities from air and water pollution. BIOGAS WILL MAKE A BAD SITUATION WORSE As if that’s not bad enough, the 2021 Farm Bill passed by the North Carolina General Assembly also calls for the creation of a general permit for biogas production from CAFO waste, which will make it easier for other farms to follow suit. And as you’d expect from captured legislators, the draft of this general permit contains the same deficiencies as the four individual permits initially issued. As noted by the SELC in a supplement to its original complaint:17 “While it is unknown exactly how many of these operations will apply for coverage under the Digester General Permit, the impacts and harms from these operations are likely to be felt disproportionately by the Black, Latino, and Native American communities that more commonly live near industrial hog operations. |
| Posted by:NoMoreBS |