A month after Hurricane Florence swamped southern North Carolina with up to 40 inches of rain, state officials offered on Thursday to buy out hog farms that have a high risk of flooding in severe storms. North Carolina said that four of every five hog farms retired after the destructive Hurricane Floyd in 1999 probably would have flooded in Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
“This is a voluntary option for swine producers in the 100-year floodplain that will enable them to reinvest in their farming operations to convert to other agricultural enterprises more compatible with flood-prone locations,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. The buyout includes a conservation easement that prohibits future use of the land for an industrial livestock farm. About $5 million is available for the new buyouts.
In four previous buyout rounds, 42 hog farms on the 100-year floodplain were shut down at a cost of $18.7 million. The state Agriculture Department said 34 of those farms likely would have flooded in Hurricane Matthew. Agricultural losses from Hurricane Florence are estimated at $2.4 billion, compared to $400 million from Matthew.
Gov. Roy Cooper proposed, as part of a Hurricane Florence recovery package, spending up to $75 million to expand the voluntary buyout program to cover hog farms within the 500-year floodplain. “Funds may be used to relocate operations outside of the floodplain. Grants may be awarded to farmers and third parties to convert from open lagoons to environmentally superior technologies,” said the governor’s office on Wednesday. Legislators will consider the aid package next week.
By one estimate, 60 hog farms remain on the 100-year floodplain. The North Carolina Pork Council said that more than 325 manure lagoons on the floodplain have been permanently closed since Hurricane Floyd.
At midweek, the state Department of Environmental Quality said 43 manure lagoons on hog farms were flooded or overflowing, with 47 additional lagoons at risk of overflowing. Six lagoons have structural damage. North Carolina is the No. 2 hog-producing state and ranks third in chicken production. There are an estimated 6,500 industrial hog, dairy, and chicken farms in the state, and 3,700 open-topped manure lagoons.
Environmentalists have argued for years that the large livestock farms, built mostly in the eastern half of the state, were vulnerable to flooding, which could release millions of gallons of raw manure from the pond-like lagoons located on hog farms. The North Carolina Pork Council said that urban flooding has a much bigger impact.