Legal Developments Regarding North Carolina's Swine Farms

North Carolina went from being a leader in free range hog-raising in the Eighteenth Century to being a leader in CAFO swine production in the Twentieth Century. The swine CAFO building boom of the 1980s and early 1990s led to a series of environmental disasters. In turn the General Assembly enacted restrictions on swine farm expansion while regulators and enforcement attorneys in the NC Department of Justice pursued enforcement actions against violators. Eventually, the N.C. Department of Justice entered into agreements funding technology development to replace swine waste lagoons.