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Jason Yu

Professor Wood

WR 39C

February 26, 2022

Hog Farming Alternatives

`        As climate change continues to become a bigger topic of interest in our lives, we must find areas where we can optimize in order to reduce our carbon gas emissions. One such place could be finding alternative solutions to industrial hog farming in North Carolina. According to the IATP, a non-profit research and advocacy organization, with our current regulations, we have seen “methane emissions from manure management at industrial dairy and hog operations increased by 80.4%”.(Lillisten) This approximately equates to 13% of the total methane emitted by the United States, which if solved, could slow down climate change significantly. The problem of industrial farming lies in the management of manure and quality of feed given to the animals. Our current method of storing manure through waste lagoons “promotes an anaerobic environment which leads to an increase in methane production”.(Grossi) This means that we are promoting an environment that allows bacteria to thrive and emit methane through our current means of storing manure. In addition, the food quality, which is the kind of food that is fed to the hogs, can have an effect on enteric fermentation, a process that occurs when digesting food and releases greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. This issue of industrial hog farming has been recognized by the media and there have been efforts to address this problem, however, we have yet to apply any one solution.

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        In an attempt to address this issue, the Attorney General of North Carolina made agreements with SmithField Foods, a pork producer and food company, and Premium Standard Farms. In this agreement, both companies agreed to provide money in order to fund research on an “environmentally superior technology”. In total, 17.1 million dollars are put into this research to create or find new technology that is an appropriate solution, is financially feasible, and must fix the current manure management problem, which includes emissions, odors, and contamination. However, just this agreement alone does not do enough to fix the issue today.

        Environmental groups have realized that the issue is something that must be addressed now. Recently, their attempts to shutter factory farms is a petition to abandon a deal made between the government and factory farms that keeps it from being regulated. The deal, explained in an article by a science-driven nonprofit journalism organization called Environmental Health News, says “that the agency(EPA) would not enforce air pollution regulations provided that factory farm owners pay for a national

Figure 1. Chart of animal number per farm estimates in the United States

livestock and poultry air pollution study, according to the petition.”(Gribkoff) In the eyes of environmentalist groups, the issue is not that we do not have the technology to make

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industrial farming more preferable for the environment, but it is that industrial farms are not being regulated for the amount of greenhouse gasses they emit. While regulating industry farms will definitely help with the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, the reason why the government is reluctant to regulate this industry is because it is a “system that accounts for much of the nation’s food supply.” (Brown) Along with the risk of challenging our nation’s current food supply, another obstacle that the government faces is the immense number of hogs living in industrial farms and the damage that regulating these farms could do to a state with an agricultural-based economy such as North Carolina with farming making up almost 3% of its revenue.(Walden) According to Figure 1, which is a chart published by a non-profit think tank, there are approximately 98.3% of all hogs living in industrial farms. This means that industrial farming is here to stay and alternatives rather than regulations must be found in order to lessen the side effects of industrial farming.

        Currently, with the agreement from SmithField Foods and Premium Standard Farms, a couple innovations are being developed and tested for treating manure issues in industrial farming. A phase 1 technology being tested right now is a belt system for manure treatment. In a document written by NC State University, a leading research

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university, the process is “designed to separate liquid and solid wastes as they are deposited inside a swine production facility.”(NC State University) As shown in Figure 2, this method of manure treatment uses a belt to capture all the manure from the livestock and is crucial to this innovation because the belt is slanted at an angle where the solid animal feces will stay on the belt that is then carried somewhere else to be collected. In addition, the liquids from animal feces or urine are then separated by sliding off the sides of the belt due to the slanted angle. Separation of the solids and liquids is important because this dries out the feces and does not promote an environment that allows greenhouse gas producing bacteria to thrive. A phase 2 technology currently being tested is using black soldier flies to eat the manure produced by livestock. Not

only are black soldier flies useful for the removal of manure, but, as shown in Figure 3, they have many uses when harvested and turned into feed for animals. The idea behind

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this system is to plant the black soldier larvae into the manure to eat it. When the larvae grow into prepupae, they are harvested and turned into high quality feed for the livestock.

        While government regulations may not be so easy to implement, other alternatives are being tested to lessen the amount of greenhouse gas emissions made from industrial farms. With phase 1 and phase 2 innovations currently being tested, we may be close to a solution that is financially efficient and significantly reduces emissions. Optimizing emissions in a rapidly growing industry such as industrial hog farming will contribute to the goal of slowing down climate change and the reversal of damages caused by it.

Works Cited

“Belt System for Manure Removal.” Belt System, https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/waste_mgt/smithfield_projects/belt%20system/beltsystem.htm.

Brown, Alex. “Environmentalists Make Long-Shot Attempt to Ban New Factory Farms.” The Pew Charitable Trusts, 19 Feb. 2021, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/02/19/environmentalists-make-long-shot-attempt-to-ban-new-factory-farms.

Gribkoff, Elizabeth. “Decades of Unregulated Air Pollution.” EHN, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.ehn.org/factory-farming-and-air-pollution-2655411751/decades-of-unregulated-air-pollution.

Grossi, Giampiero, et al. “Livestock and Climate Change: Impact of Livestock on Climate and Mitigation Strategies.” Academic.oup.com, 12 Nov. 2018, https://academic.oup.com/af/article/9/1/69/5173494?login=true#198779969.

Lilliston, Ben. “Time for US and EU to Regulate Factory Farms' Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 27 Apr. 2021, https://www.iatp.org/time-us-eu-regulate-factory-farms-greenhouse-gas#:~:text=During.

Walden, Mike. “Agriculture and Agribusiness.” NC State University, June 2020, https://cals.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2020-WaldenAgBusinessReport-061220.pdf.