North Carolina’s Racist Meat Industry: How Teachers Can Fight Environmental Racism

The browns, blacks, and native people of North Carolina and other places where large numbers of animals are raised for food have long suffered disproportionately from the sheer amount of animal waste and stench in their communities. The huge amount of faeces and liquid waste in the environment pollutes water and affects the health of residents.

If you are a science teacher or know someone who teaches, whether you live in North Carolina or not, keep reading to find out how you can help fight environmental racism and social injustice.

A call to action: anti-racism

It’s time for all teachers to unequivocally condemn racism in the classroom. The new North Carolina Science Teachers Association (NCSTA) policy against racism and inequality makes it clear that this can and should be done in science classrooms. One way to do this is to talk about systemic racism in the meat industry and how it affects communities of color in your state. Consider the NCSTA statement:

Given our mission and purpose, and the fact that our organization was formed in the same decade as the Civil Rights Act, we cannot remain silent when the members of our organization, the students we teach, the scientific community that we support and society as a whole is suffering. … In these difficult times, we stand in solidarity with the African American / Black and Brown communities. As science educators and leaders, we have a responsibility to the teachers and students we serve, and we have a responsibility to tackle inequalities in our country. This inequality has a direct impact on our students and science education. As science educators and leaders, we have a responsibility not only to model anti-racist practices, but also to actively combat institutional inequalities in the educational environment and foster long-term change so that all science education provides effective science education for all students.

Likewise, the North Carolina Board of Education has called for action to eliminate inequality and racism in the state’s public schools.

North Carolina Livestock Facts

An extensive analysis of new and expanding farms in North Carolina by the Environment Working Group (EWG) makes one thing clear: Tar Heel’s meat industry doesn’t care about people of color, including many of the lovely students you teach.

Here are 10 EWG revelations showing North Carolina’s pig and poultry industry is saving environmental racism:

1. The EWG showed that corporations added 30 million chickens and turkeys in less than a decade in Duplin, Robson and Sampson counties, where more than 57% of the population is colored.
2. These predominantly black, American and Hispanic counties already contain 4.5 million pigs, more than half of the state’s total pigs.
3. North Carolina increased its chickens and turkeys by 17% from 2012 to 2019, excluding Duplin, Robson and Sampson counties. For these three counties, this number rose to 36%.
4. In Robson County, farmers are raising 24 million chickens and turkeys, an 80% increase in just eight years. These millions of intelligent people have accumulated in dirty, damp barns.
5. According to the EWG, “The growing population of chickens and turkeys in the three counties could generate one million tons of waste annually –nearly a fifth of all estimated poultry waste statewide” [emphasis added]…
   

   To protect the health of all North Carolina residents, especially those already bearing a disproportionately heavy burden, the state must address the rampant proliferation of CAFO for poultry.

   Check out Exposing Fields of Filth, the latest report we have released since @ewg: https://t.co/1voS90lI8I

   – Waterkeepers Alliance (@Waterkeeper) Jul 30, 2020 Free transfer

6. An Environmental Protection Agency survey of the North Carolina meat industry found “a linear relationship between race and ethnicity. [of residents within 3 miles of industrial hog operations] and … the density of the pigs. “
7. It took a civil rights lawsuit to regulate the amount of animal waste that pig farms can spray on colored communities. Despite new methods for monitoring air and water in pig farms, the state has allowed the exponential growth of poultry farms in those same counties with little or no regulatory oversight.
8. Environmental regulators often do not know where, when and how much livestock waste is sprayed by poultry farms on crop fields. Obviously, the meat industry believes it can treat communities of color like its own dump.
9. According to a Duke University study, North Carolina residents living near industrial pig farms have higher death rates from a number of diseases than other residents of the state. These include anemia, kidney disease, bacterial infection, and tuberculosis.
10. In general, communities affected by dirty pig farms have higher mortality rates, including infant mortality. It is reported that children who go to school in the area are more likely to suffer from shortness of breath and asthma.

Learning Opportunities

Livestock farming in North Carolina is of the utmost importance. It houses farms such as Murphy-Brown LLC, which artificially breeds pigs on a large scale and supplies them to the infamous corporate giant Smithfield Foods, a company that teachers and students alike can support with their purchases. Large numbers of pigs are slaughtered in the state (second only to Iowa), along with chickens and other animals raised for food. It means that no matter where you live, you must teach your students the important issue of environmental racism, because they can contribute to it without even realizing it.… A vegetarian diet can prevent the formation, overflow, runoff, and health risks of vast amounts of animal waste, as well as the death of countless animals.

Below are some ways to talk about the link between the meat industry and environmental racism. (Teaching outside of North Carolina? You can also use this information to familiarize yourself with the next generation of environmental science scientific standards.) Try the following exercises:

• Using the facts above, compose an environmental science lesson on the impact of human behavior (such as industrial farming) on ​​the vitality of the planet to meet this standard.
• Imagine an alternative scenario for raising animals for food (for example, producing vegan meat) and the potential positive effects on human and earth health.
• Use the blog post “Fighting Climate Change by Going Vegan” to talk about climate change – a priority in science education – and ask your students how they can help reduce emissions, pollution and animal suffering.
• Identify the “limiting factor” in relation to the meat industry and environmental sustainability. Have students use facts to explain how the limiting factor affects communities of color (for example, causing illness, increasing infant mortality).
• Create a Venn diagram to illustrate the intersection between animal husbandry, pollution, human disease, environmental racism, and sustainability.
• Explain the concept arrogance… How does arrogance intersect with racism? Knowing how the North Carolina meat industry harms communities of color, can you be anti-racist and still support killing animals for food?

Want to continue educating your students about the relat
ionship between the animal rights movement and other social justice movements? TeachKind’s free social justice curriculum Challenges to Assumptions is designed to educate students in grades 9-12 by empowering them to challenge social norms and instill compassion and empathy for others, regardless of race, gender, sexual identity, age, or abilities. Use these resources to continue talking with your students about the intersection of many forms of prejudice and the ability of our everyday language and actions to reinforce or challenge ideas of power and superiority.