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This page is maintained by
Thomas Rourke The person responsible for this web site server is Patrick Harris ©1998 Strom Thurmond Institute |
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The Hog Farm Controversy: What's at Stake?
By Professor James Hite
1999
One of the biggest controversies swirling now in South Carolina concerns legislation introduced late last year to accomodate hog farming and hog butchering operations in the South Carloina Pee Dee.
Introduced under the catchy title of a "Right to Farm" bill, the legislation sailed through the State House of Representatives without very close scrunity. Controversy begin to build during the fall when it became clear the legislation would, in effect, strip local governments of important powers to control land use, effectively eroding home ruleand when stories of environmental problems with large-scale hog farms in North carolina started toget public attention. Passage of the legislation in the Senate is now in serious question.
The Pee Dee region still is heavily dependent upon tobacco, and the economic future of the tobacco industry is shaky. That region needs to be looking for a new economic base, and some see large-scale hog operations as a possible substitute for tobacco in the Pee Dee.
Yet the economic case for a hog industry in South Carolina is not clear cut. The hog industry is very cyclical. Hog farming has always been one of the quickest ways to make money in agricultutre, and one of the quickest ways to go broke. That instability makes it unsuitable as a mainstay of a local economic base.
To the extent that a hog industry can provide job opportunities for low-skilled South Carolina workers, we might not worry too much that the jobs are unlikely to be high-paying. But the jobs are also likely not to be very secure.
Many of the objections to bringing the hog industry into South Carolina has to do with odors and other kinds of environmental degradation. As the experience of North Carolina with things like spills from waste lagoons shows, there are certainly environmental problems to worry about. What' s more, South Carolina is rapidly exhausting the waste assimilative capacity of the state's streams, and even if the effluent from a hog processing plant is treated to meet DHEC standards, the treated effluent will use up something that is essential to the state's growth and is increasingly in short supply.
When all the plus and minuses of accomodating the new hog industry in South Carolina are totaled up, South Carolina would do well to make no special effort to attract the hog industry. If we lose the hog industry, we do not lose a lot of economic benefits, and if we get it, we also get a lot of difficult problems that could hamper our economic development over the long run.
The economic development prospects of the Pee Dee are probably best served by reserving the waste assimilative capacity in the region's streams for higher value uses. If individual counties in the Pee Dee want to enact zoning laws that accomodate the hog industry, they can do so now without any new state legislation. Stripping away the power of local government in every county to control land use is just not necessary.
Different rules in different counties is too confusing, some say. Nonesense! Conditions differ too much across South Carolina to try to force uniformity everywhere. At a time when the competition for economic development is becoming increasingly keen, local governments must have the ability to respond flexibly to local needs and conditions. It borders on folly to hamstring local elected officials them with legislation that erodes home rule
A lot of my farm friends will be angry if this so-called "Right-to-Farm" law dies in the Senate. Agriculture Commssioner Les Tindal has worked hard on it; he's a determined man who does not give up easily, and his commitment to South Carolina agriculture is beyond question. More of us need to work as hard as Commissioner Tindal does to nourish an economically viable agriculture sector in South Carolina. But we can do it without the hogs, and opting for large-scale hog operations may well mean opting for long-run economic and environmental troubles that we just don't need in South Carolina.
Jim Hite is a senior fellow of the Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs at Clemson University where he is alumni
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This page is maintained by
Thomas Rourke The person responsible for this web site server is Patrick Harris ©1998 Strom Thurmond Institute |
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