Home is Where the Heart is— A Reform to Keep it Beating
By: Tara Phipps
Tags: Factory Farming, Reform, Environmental Racism, Hog Farm, Environmental Issues

Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur on Unsplash

When a house becomes a home, everything seems to settle. Routines fall into place, each room has its own little safe space, and every time you step inside a weight lifts off your shoulders.

Home is where the heart is, after all, and it always beats to a steadier rhythm when you get there.

So what would happen if someone was poisoning that home you cherish so much? If you couldn’t step outside into your own backyard to relax, or if that rhythm stopped being so steady because that someone was poisoning you too?

Unfortunately, for communities near hog farms, these aren’t simply “what if” scenarios— these are real life.

Their homes are perpetually harmed by the farms just down the street from their communities, and they’re statistically more likely to develop one or many types of illnesses due to the pollution in the air. Their homes are— quite literally — being poisoned.

It’s been a long, uphill battle of lawsuits and complaints for the people in these communities, but an antidote seems to be finally in the works. More than slow-moving lawsuits and fines, these people need tangible action.

Legislation to increase the regulation of factory farms and begin the process to break apart conglomerate farms is long overdue, as well as the need to create accountability for the environmental injustices these farms create.

Environmental Injustice

Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur on Unsplash

Steven Wing, who was a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, shared the detrimental impacts of factory farms on communities that surround them in a 2013 TedTalk.

Steve Wing TedTalk 2013

Wing “studied the medical literature and learned about the allergens, gases, bacteria, and viruses released by these facilities — all of them capable of making people sick.”

In a 2014 study, Wing partnered with assistant professor Jill Johnston to further examine the impact of the hog industry on civilians in North Carolina. They found more specific issues that arise from air pollutants hog farms release, such as the “disruption of activities of daily living, stress, anxiety, mucous membrane irritation, respiratory conditions, reduced lung function, and acute blood pressure elevation.”

They also found that these hog farms “disproportionately affect Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents,” which is a pattern consistent with previous research that finds this trend of environmental racism.

Bob Edwards, a professor of sociology, examined several different relationships between the race and poverty rates of people living in areas surrounding hog farms over several years and published his findings in 2001. By analyzing trends in several communities, he was able to confirm his hypothesis that people who live around hog farms are often lower-income and people of color.

These two demographics are especially substantial to consider when the most obvious question comes to mind: why don’t they just leave? Without the proper income or property value to sell in the first place, people in these communities are stuck. Some don’t want to leave because it’s their home, but many don’t even have the resources to get out if they wanted to. This is where the most significant need for change rises to the surface — no person should feel trapped in their community.

Rather than displacing members of these communities or allowing them to suffer under these hazardous conditions, legislators should work to create a safe environment.

Several politicians have recognized the injustices these communities face, and some have even attempted to move legislation forward to increase regulations on hog farms, but most of the time it dies in congress or falls by the wayside through the process.

The Solution

Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash

The Farm System Reform Act is a piece of legislation sponsored by Cory Booker that was introduced to Congress in January 2020.

In the Op-Ed NowThis News published to their Youtube channel, Booker is joined by co-sponsors Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna in talking broadly about the complications of factory farming and why this bill would be so beneficial to everyone involved.

“These conditions hurt our environment. They are a threat to the health and well-being of the communities where so many people live, often low-income folks.” — Cory Booker

The reform act aims to end Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) by 2040 and puts a temporary hold on the building or expansion of any CAFOs as soon as it is passed. It also holds the large conglomerates responsible “for pollution and other harm” they’ve caused and creates a buyout system for farmers to transition out of CAFO management.

The passing of this bill would provide an incentive to shut down large factory farms and transition them into more sustainable farms without the waste management systems that so often lead to the health risks in surrounding communities, and would hold those main conglomerates liable for all the issues they create in the areas these CAFOs exist.

Critics have argued that the financial benefits that come with factory farms are the reason they should stay unbothered by overhaul legislation like Booker proposed. While it’s true there are several financial incentives to factory farms, such as job creation and low prices for consumers, the environmental injustice so many communities face across the United State and the world far outweighs the economic wobble that will ultimately balance itself out as Americans adjust to the shift in the food process. Beyond that, the transition period is meant to happen over almost twenty years, and while it dismantles large CAFOs, it would still allow smaller ones to remain.

So not only would large farms be phased out, getting rid of the ones that have the most devastating impact on communities, but there would also still be a sufficient supply of meat.

This reform act may be an overhaul, but it doesn’t eradicate the meat culture many people in America associate with. It’s a solution that creates balance by working to help everyday people while still allowing for meat production for the everyday consumer to indulge in— even if that means paying a little more.

Now, more than ever, is an important time to create change. As one president’s time ends and a new president’s time begins, it’s time to get that heartbeat back to a steady rhythm so communities afflicted by these farms can breathe happy and healthy in the loving embrace of a safe, warm home.