Race, Class, Political Capacity and the Spatial Distribution of Swine Waste in North Carolina, 1982 - 1997

Abstract

The emerging national controversy over the socio-economic and environmental impacts of corporate pork production on rural communities raises claims of environmental injustice. Over the past two decades, the U.S swine industry has undergone a dramatic restructuring, expansion, and vertical integration of its pork production systems throughout North America, locating in peripheral, rural locations like North Carolina where environmental costs can be more easily externalized on to marginalized populations. We examine the relationships between key environmental justice variables-race, class, and local political capacity-and the spatial concentration of swine waste in the Black Belt region of the state and assess, empirically, claims of environmental inequity central to this emerging national issue. Analyzing the growth and concentration of swine production in eastern North Carolina between 1982 and 1997, we find clear cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence that minority communities and localities lacking the political capacity to resist are shouldering the bulk of the adverse economic, social, and environmental impacts of pork industry restructuring. We also find that the relationship berween poverry and swine waste concentration varies by region. In the eastern region where 95% of North Carolina's swine waste is produced, we find a strong direct relationship between poverty and concentrated swine waste, while in the rest of the state we find an inverse relationship.