A traveling video show making the rounds at shopping centers here presents a truly horrifying view of life in the Tar Heel state. In the video, produced by opponents of corporate farming, images of huge industrial farms and bloated hog carcasses flicker across the screen.
Neighbors complain about awful odors, overflowing waste lagoons and polluted rivers.
Already, corporate hog farming has made inroads in Midwestern states, but the changes have been relatively slow. Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota have enacted laws that restrict corporate ownership of farms. In Iowa, the nation's No. 1 hog producer, contract farming accounts for 15 percent of all hogs raised, compared to 82 percent in North Carolina. Many younger farmers are welcoming the arrival of companies like North Carolina's Murphy Family Farms as a way to break into a high-capital industry. But traditionalists like Gary Hoskey, a small independent farmer from Montour, view the invaders as a direct threat to their economic survival.