Pigs, Profit, Planet: North Carolina Farmers’ Perspectives on Waste Lagoon Conversion

Abstract

It has been documented that pollution from North Carolina hog waste lagoons contaminates drinking water, lowers air quality, and devastates North Carolina’s commercial and recreational fishing and tourist industries. The North Carolina state legislature has offered swine farmers a 90% cost-share grant to convert their lagoons to “Environmentally Superior Technologies (EST),” yet only 11 of 2,200 farms have applied for the cost-share program. This paper sheds light on why hog farmers are not converting their lagoons to EST, finding that the biggest barriers to the adoption of EST are cost and complex operation requirements. Background information, literature, and interviews with North Carolina swine farmers are used to develop a survey that can be applied on a larger scale to gain a deeper understanding of the potential for and pitfalls of retrofitting hog farms in North Carolina.