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More than two dozen environmentalist and social justice groups signed a petition detailing concerns about the potentially harmful impacts of biogas projects in rural North Carolina communities of color and are calling for their elimination.
The document, signed by 26 groups including the NC Sierra Club, the NC Conservation Network and the Poor People s Campaign, also criticizes Smithfield Foods for not upholding a promise the company made to create safer technologies to manage hog waste on swine farms in the state.
In the 2000 agreement, Smithfield Foods vowed to spend $15 million to get rid of the lagoon and spray-field system which showers hog waste onto crops, contributes to the pollution of the air and groundwater, and has adverse health effects on communities living around the industrialized hog farms, according to environmentalists.
For decades, the U.S. agriculture industry had staunchly opposed measures to limit climate change.
Lobbying groups, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, expressed skepticism that humans caused it. And companies, such as Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods, have been fined millions for environmental violations.
But the industry in recent years has altered its stance on the issue. Riding a wave of shifting public opinion about the reality of climate change, it is staking out a new position as part of the climate solution.
One of the most visible signs of this about-face happened late last year when the Farm Bureau partnered with dozens of other groups, from agriculture organizations to environmental advocates, to announce a new initiative: the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance. The group has proposed 40 new policies, including voluntary incentives and other tools for farmers to address a warming planet.
Once climate change deniers, the agriculture industry positions itself as part of the solution Ignacio Calderon
For decades, the U.S. agriculture industry had staunchly opposed measures to limit climate change.
Lobbying groups, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, expressed skepticism that humans caused it. And companies, such as Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods, have been fined millions for environmental violations.
But the industry in recent years has altered its stance on the issue. Riding a wave of shifting public opinion about the reality of climate change, it is staking out a new position as part of the climate solution.
The N.C. Division of Air Quality granted Smithfield Foods and Dominion Energy one of the permits they need to move forward in completing a controversial project to create natural gas by using hog waste in Sampson and Duplin County.
With the air quality permit, the two companies will build a gas-conditioning facility to trap biogas, or hog feces, and process it to inject the gas into a 30-mile-long pipeline that will run between Turkey and Warsaw. This is the first step in their joint Align RNG project.
“This is great news for the environment, consumers and family farmers across North Carolina,” said Kraig Westerbeek, the senior director of Smithfield Renewables at Smithfield Foods. “Renewable natural gas is a transformational opportunity to reduce farm emissions, generate clean energy and provide economic opportunity for family farmers.