This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Fourth Estate Fund.
Marlowe Ivey yells through a barn door on one of the three hog farms she owns in Wayne County. The pigs grunt back at her.
Ivey took over the operation from her dad, Bob Ivey, who farmed the land for more than 40 years. She now raises about 25,000 hogs, under contract with the big pork companies Smithfield and Prestage Farms. She bought some of the land from her father and uncle two years ago. Last year, she added six turkey barns on another 32 acres next to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.
As a 40-year-old third-generation farmer, she takes it personally when she hears people criticize her industry.
"The reason that we raise these hogs in barns is actually to protect the environment," she says. "I feel like sometimes I get lost in translation, and people don't understand the day-in and day-outs of being on a family farm […] When people use terms like factory (farm) and discredit us, it can be frustrating, especially as a millennial farmer."
Marlowe Ivey says she faces a challenge her father and grandfather didn't: The need to continually educate people about where their food comes from. A decade ago, she helped found a group called Feed the Dialog NC. She's used social media and written blog posts for farming websites. She even starred in a pork industry-backed short film in 2021 called "The Carbon Neutral Pig," to promote how farmers can address pollution and climate change.
"It's not all rainbows and butterflies. I mean, agriculture is hard," she says. "And that's why it's important for me to do interviews with people like you who are curious about … how important this is to us, and what we do to continue a legacy and protect the environment. And I want to teach the same morals to my kids about the land and working the land as my dad and grandfather did."
Her father also grew up on the farm. His father grew tobacco and raised poultry. Bob Ivey says he switched to hogs with help from NC State University.
"In '79, I got interested in pig farming seriously, and NC State was having a program for young farmers to get them away from tobacco," Bob Ivey explains.
He says raising hogs in barns actually addresses environmental problems with pasture-raised animals. Manure just isn't managed as well, he says. And the animals tend to root up the soils, kill the trees, and risk more illnesses.
Bob Ivey was one of the first farmers to introduce the lagoon-and-spray system for hog waste, in which manure is collected in ponds and then sprayed on nearby farm fields as fertilizer.
"So I was part of that group that really took hogs from being on the ground to putting them in confinement," he says.
State law requires farmers to show how they will manage waste so it doesn't run off into nearby waterways or wetlands. That means calculating the amount of waste and the area needed to spray it without oversaturating the land, says Bob Ivey. Most farmers meet the state standards.
We walk out behind the barns to the pond, where Bob Ivey explains how the system works.
"On this particular one, an extension agent designed it. The size is based on the number of animals. It's probably about 20 feet deep," he says. "The bottom level is for sludge. Then it has a treatment level, and then there has to have 24 inches of free board."
That's the distance from the water to the wall of the lagoon. The nutrient-rich wastewater from the lagoon rises and falls with both rainfall and how often it's pumped onto nearby hay and corn fields, says Bob Ivey. The red-brown color comes from bacteria at work. The ponds are pumped out only when it's safe and won't run off, says Marlowe Ivey.
"We're not out pumping out here when it's raining. … At one of my farms, I checked … I applied 19 times last year," she says.
Besides reporting the pond's level, she also has to measure and report how much manure sludge is at the bottom of the lagoon. That gets dredged out occasionally and also used as fertilizer, Bob Ivey says
Marlowe Ivey's hog farms have clean records, according to North Carolina DEQ reports.
The state legislature hasn't allowed a new or expanded operation like this since 1997, amid concerns about the environment. But it did not outlaw existing lagoons. The idea was to give farmers time to come up with alternatives.
"The hog farmer in eastern North Carolina has really done a lot to reduce their environmental footprint," Bob Ivey says.
Dozens of lagoons have been removed after major hurricanes, he notes. And farmers these days use feed additives to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus in manure. And some farms are experimenting with covered lagoons that capture methane for natural gas, which goes into the gas pipeline system for energy. But those lagoons still need to be pumped out and sprayed, says Bob Ivey.
Marlowe Ivey says she would like to introduce covered lagoons at her farms someday. But it would be a big investment. And it would never entirely replace lagoons, says Bob Ivey.
"To be quite honest with you, I think that they complement each other really well. And so the lagoons have done a really good job. They're well designed," he says.
Public health researchers have found that CAFOs can lead to respiratory illnesses, heart and kidney trouble, and other ailments. That's why they're a target for residents and environmental activists. But the Iveys say they have lived on farms their whole lives, raising kids and employing workers — without illness. Marlowe Ivey says she and her kids are healthy.
"We're so used to that narrative that's been spread for years about the environmental or the health impacts of our farms," she says. "I mean, my kids are here every day. They participate in these farms. We don't have any health issues."
Marlowe Ivey says she once took her son to a doctor for allergies and asked the doctor if the farm was the cause. The doctor answered no, and she says he told her that kids who grow up exposed to the outdoors are less susceptible to allergies and asthma. Bob Ivey says he's waiting for a new study now underway at NC State that will show the big farms don't affect public health.
Bob Ivey thinks a bigger reason for environmental and water quality issues in eastern North Carolina is simply population growth and development. That has brought new roads and construction that can affect runoff and water quality. Hog farms haven't been expanded in decades, yet he says people still point the finger at farmers.
"There's a whole lot more people. And there's actually technology now that you can go and determine where the manure comes from. And over half of the water quality problems are municipalities, septic systems, those type of things, golf courses," he says.
Cities and towns are allowed to discharge wastewater into waterways. But Bob Ivey says farmers can't do that - they have "no discharge" permits.
Roy Lee Lindsey, CEO of the North Carolina Pork Council, says any effort to require major changes to animal waste management would threaten the industry.
"Are there things that we could do to change how we manage manure on the farm? Yes. Are there things we could do to change that would allow us to remain in business? And today, the answer is no," he says.
He says stricter regulations would "dramatically reduce" the number of farms and hogs.
"You're not going to find pork in the grocery store the way you do today, and you're not going to be able to buy it at the price you are today," Lindsey says.
Marlowe Ivey says she and other farmers are always trying to get better.
"We're producing more hogs with less environmental footprint than we did, you know, 30-40, years ago. I think that's a huge testimony to the environmentalism that farmers practice," she says.
Community and environmental advocates in North Carolina want to see more. But at least for now, the laws and regulations favor the status quo for farmers and big food producers.
NEXT: An interview with environmental reporter David Boraks about his work on WHQR’s CAFO Country series.
