As Barry Yeoman explains in FERN’s latest story, published with Sierra Magazine, “[i]ndustrial hog farms are ramping up efforts to convert methane from swine waste into biogas—a fuel that can heat homes, produce electricity, and power vehicles—by fitting waste lagoons with airtight covers that trap the methane for collection. (The covered pits are referred to as ‘anaerobic digesters.’) Smithfield says that it’s ‘a good steward of the environment’ for producing what the industry calls ‘renewable natural gas.’ It said in 2018 that it expected more than 90 percent of its North Carolina hog-finishing operations to produce biogas within a decade. Prestage Farms is exploring the possibility too.
“Critics believe that it’s little more than an effort by the hog industry to greenwash its image. Many residents who live near CAFOs, [Elaine] Howard points out, are like her: rural, Black, living in modest dwellings. ‘You don’t never see them go put a hog place in a rich neighborhood with big old two-story houses, do you?’ she said. ‘I think they think we’re just a waste, just like the hogs.’”