Nash County Residents Hatch Plan to Stop Poultry Factory Farm

North Carolina is chicken country: Its $3.8 billion dollars in farm income makes it the third poultry-producing state in the U.S. with more than 10 percent of national production. That's a lot of bird.

But even in North Carolina there should be limits to the hell of factory farms.

This is the premise of the campaign by the Southern Nash Landowners Association on Change.org.

"Nash County is the WRONG location for the proposed slaughterhouse, hatchery and poultry waste spray field," the group writes in their petition, as it asks for everyone's help in protecting their local air and water quality from factory farm pollution.

The association formed earlier this month specifically to push back against Sanderson Farms' proposal. As Change.org's Sustainable Food reports, the plant would dump thousands of gallons of manure and arsenic-laden wastewater over a 600-acre spray field, feeding right into the local watershed that more than 50,000 residents rely on for drinking water. And once one plant opens its gates, more hatcheries and poultry concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) could follow.

In a recent post on its site, the Association notes that the plant would yield 182 million pounds of manure a year, the same amount that 19,782 African elephants would produce. Imagine that.

The Southern Nash Landowners Association anticipates the usual "pro" argument: Jobs. The problem is, they don't want these dangerous and often short-lived employment options.  A recent poll in Nash and Wilson Counties finds that 61 percent of registered voters wish Sanderson Farms would look for safer alternate sites and don't feel the 1,100 jobs are worth the environmental costs. Not to mention, between chemical burns and worker amputations, the industry treats its workers almost as brutally as chickens and turkeys. The poultry industry's death and injury rates are higher than the entire manufacturing sector as a whole, The Charlotte Observer says.

"Sanderson Farms targets people with few options, hires them to work in their facility, uses them for a few years, gives them repetitive motion injuries, and then sends them back into the community to be cared for," the association says in its petition.

The activists have a website: SayNotoSanderson.com, where you can read a lot more about why they are opposing the plant. But this group is getting a lot more involved than just using online promotion.

They are also buying shares in Sanderson Farms so they have the right to attend shareholders meeting, directly petition the Board of Directors, and request a review of company files regarding the site selection process. In addition, they have filed a lawsuit to stop the project and have hired a PR firm. They are joined by the neighboring city of Wilson, which has dedicated $1 million tax dollars to fighting the proposal on which they have had no say.

Factory farms are polluting waterways all over the country. So when one community has the wherewithal to organize such a coordinated fight against an major corporation's plans, they deserve our support.

Please sign the Southern Nash Landowners Association's petition, and say no to factory farm pollution.

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Photo credit: Johnny Hunter via Flickr