Hogs, Humans, and the Environment: Expanding upon and emphasizing the importance of “One Health” by looking at the industrial hog farms of North Carolina

“One Health”, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is the concept that the health of humans is tightly interlaced with the health of animals and the environment. In this presentation, we agree with the claim that the well-being of humans and animals are not conflicting interests, but rather overlapping interests. In other words, it is about having them coexist simultaneously in order to capitalize upon the benefits the two populations can generate in the other. To elucidate this point further, we will present a case study of the hog industry in North Carolina. Since the 1980s, North Carolina has been at the forefront of the hog industry in the United States. While the economic benefit of these hog farms is apparent, what underlies this are the systemic, environmental, and health injustices that both the hog and human populations continuously suffer. Hog welfare is completely ignored, as they’re forced to live in inhumanely tight and unsanitary quarters. In addition, because these farms are being managed with little to no regard for the surrounding environment, the health of the locals is severely impacted, many of whom are of a lower socio-economic status and from minority backgrounds. Ultimately, we conclude that if we want to make significant and substantial headway into the larger questions of how to improve human well-being, we cannot leave the consideration of animal well-being out of the conversation.

Taylor Abboushi – Bioethics – Wake Forest University Graduate School