Civil Eats | October 20, 2020

Over the last decade, North Carolina’s General Assembly, which the Republican party has controlled since 2010, has gerrymandered voting district maps along racial lines and passed numerous laws aimed at making it harder for minorities to vote. In the midst of these ongoing efforts, many Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities in the eastern part of the state say they’ve repeatedly watched as their elected officials promote the interests of hog and poultry companies over their safety and well-being—as evidenced by the number and density of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) permitted in their communities and the ineffectiveness of the facilities’ waste-disposal systems.

WHpigs1myfave.jpeg

“Hey pigs, we brought you some cucumbers!” yells Hillary Kimmel from the driver’s seat of an off-roading golf cart. The 21 young hogs who had been lazily rooting around the hardwood forest floor flee as the vehicle approaches, rustling leaves and branches as they scoot further into the trees. “They’ll be back—it’s their routine to run away and slowly return,” says her husband Worth Kimmel. “They’re both skittish and curious,” adds Hillary.

Since 2014, Worth and Hillary have run Pine Trough Branch Farm (PTB) in rural Rockingham County, North Carolina on 118 acres of pasture and forest land that Worth’s family has owned since the 1950s. In addition to hogs, they raise sheep and cows, as well as vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, and a variety of flowers—with a focus on building healthy soil and raising animals by the highest standards of animal welfare.

CivilEats_DebbieClay_3078-1200x800.jpg

A few years after her father died unexpectedly, Holly Maffitt decided to take over her parents’ 500-acre cattle operation in Pike County, Missouri. Living by herself in the old brick farmhouse seven miles west of the Mississippi River, the 68-year-old was grateful for the chance to enjoy the brilliant sunrises and sunsets she’d missed during the decades she’d spent raising a family and working as a nurse in Houston.

But she soon began to realize how much she didn’t know about overseeing an active farm. When she first assumed responsibility in 2012, Maffitt was unaware how the rural roads around her connected, couldn’t name many of the tools in the farm’s machine shop, didn’t know much about managing livestock—and most importantly, didn’t have the language to communicate effectively with the father and son tenants who managed the cattle and crops on the property.

Hemp-farmer-daughter-1.jpg

In 2014, after growing industrial hemp in the U.S. became legal for the first time in almost five decades, organic farmer John Bell applied for a permit and planted a few acres on his 550-acre family farm in central Kentucky.

Even though his grandfather cultivated hemp on the same rolling hills during World War II, his father wasn’t legally able to. As a result, the 48-year-old has faced a steep learning curve since he put the first seeds in the ground four seasons ago. “I didn’t inherit the knowledge,” Bell said.

An unfamiliar car pulled into the labor camp of a blueberry farm in Southern New Jersey last month, and the four year-round farmworkers on site stopped what they were doing, went inside, and locked themselves in their rooms. Afraid of being deported by federal immigration agents operating with increased authority since President Trump signed an executive order to that effect in January, the workers stayed locked in their rooms overnight, forgoing dinner and talking to each other through the walls rather than in the open.

North Carolina’s commercial fishermen—who work primarily in independent, small-scale operations—landed 66 million pounds of fish last year, but rather than ending up on North Carolina plates, the majority was whisked out of state to markets where it could fetch a higher price.

“I think more New Yorkers eat North Carolina seafood than North Carolinians,” says Ann Simpson, who grew up in a small town on the coast and currently directs North Carolina Catch, a partnership of smaller organizations working to strengthen the state’s local seafood economy.

Elsie Herring stays indoors on the days the industrial hog farm next door sprays manure from a lagoon-like holding pit across the field that ends eight feet from her kitchen window. Because a filthy mist coats her property if the wind is blowing from the west, Herring has learned to avoid activities like sitting on her porch, grilling outside, hanging laundry on the line, opening windows, and drinking water from the well.

With its almost 10 million hogs and 148 million chickens, North Carolina holds some of the highest concentrations of factory farms in the United States. So when Hurricane Matthew dumped more than 15 inches of rain and set off historic flooding in the parts of the state most densely populated by livestock, it created problems—for the farm operations themselves and for the land and people nearby.