Charlotte Observer, N&O investigation of NC poultry farming wins more national awards
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Big Poultry
North Carolina’s poultry farms are everywhere. The state cloaks big poultry in secrecy to the point regulators don’t even know where most of the farms are located. Neighbors complain about the stench and other nuisances. But state laws leave courts and local governments nearly powerless to help.
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Charlotte Observer and News & Observer reporting on North Carolina’s secretive poultry industry has won two additional national journalism awards.
The Big Poultry investigative series won a National Headliner Award in its environmental writing category, which was announced today. Recently it was named co-winner of the National Press Foundation’s Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy & Environment Reporting.
“Reporters showed an ingenious use of technology, pairing satellite imagery with existing data to determine that about 230,000 people are living near these farms. Comparing how 10 other states manage this industry added to the power of the series, which already has legislators looking at ways to address some of the problems raised in it,” the Headliner Award announcement reads.
Charlotte Observer investigative reporters Gavin Off and Ames Alexander and News & Observer environmental reporter Adam Wagner led the reporting over many months, with assists from N&O investigative journalists David Raynor and Tyler Dukes.
Visual journalists from both newsrooms and McClatchy’s Investigations and Enterprise Graphics team expanded the storytelling with photography, video, graphics and animation.
Shrouded in secrecy
In recent years, poultry surpassed swine farming as North Carolina’s top agriculture sector. The industry now raises more than 1 billion chickens and turkeys each year — birds that generate billions of pounds of untreated waste in barns that can stretch as long as two football fields.
Big Poultry’s deep reporting included more than 130 interviews, extensive data analysis, the mapping of some 4,700 farms and the personal stories of people with little recourse against a powerful industry.
Neighbors complain of extreme odors and other nuisances. Some pollutants seep into streams and rivers. But environmental regulators don’t inspect farms. They don’t know where all of them are located. State agriculture officials do, but keep that secret.
The industry’s lack of transparency makes it impossible to investigate farms’ potential cumulative impacts on people or the environment, the investigation documented.
Among Big Poultry’s findings:
- About 230,000 North Carolinians now live within a half-mile of a poultry farm and almost 700,000 live within a mile. But residents have no formal ability to challenge where these farms rise. Local officials can’t curb the industry’s growth either.
- It’s impossible to track where all the waste ends up. Poultry farms must record where they spread waste but aren’t required to tell the state or the public.
- At least 232 poultry barns — housing as many as 5.8 million birds at once – sit in floodplains. North Carolina bought out many hog farms in flood-prone areas, but not poultry farms.
- 10 other states — neighbors or other large poultry producers — all disclose more information or regulate poultry farming more rigorously than North Carolina.
- Poultry companies have engaged in “deceptive” and illegal practices in their dealings with the farmers who raise their birds, the U.S. Justice Department contends. Some farmers report feeling trapped in cycles of debt.
A recent civil rights complaint filed with the EPA focused on poultry farming in North Carolina cites findings from the Big Poultry series. A bill filed in the general assembly would eliminate some secrecy and require more environmental regulation.
The investigative series also received national awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT in recent months.
Find all stories from the Big Poultry project here.
This story was originally published May 10, 2023 at 10:52 AM with the headline "Charlotte Observer, N&O investigation of NC poultry farming wins more national awards."
