WORLD

Charlotte Observer, N&O honored for Big Poultry reporting

Charlotte Observer and News & Observer journalists have won the 2023 Victor K. McElheny Award for their Big Poultry project, an investigation of hidden impacts from North Carolina’s largest agriculture industry.

Given annually by the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, the award recognizes “outstanding coverage” of environmental issues, science, public-health and technology focused on local and regional levels.

Observer investigative reporters Gavin Off and Ames Alexander and N&O environmental reporter Adam Wagner led the reporting over many months, with assists from N&O investigative journalists David Raynor and Tyler Dukes.

“With remarkable enterprise and persistence, these reporters from the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer penetrated the secrecy that obscures the scope and impact of thousands of industrial-scale poultry production farms in North Carolina,” one judge wrote.

This aerial view shows some of the many poultry barns that have been built in southern Anson County in recent years. N.C. lawmakers have taken many steps to make it easier for farmers to build and operate such farms.
This aerial view shows some of the many poultry barns that have been built in southern Anson County in recent years. N.C. lawmakers have taken many steps to make it easier for farmers to build and operate such farms. Alex Slitz alslitz@charlotteobserver.com

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.

In its announcement, the Knight program praised Big Poultry’s deep reporting, which 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 nearly 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.

Find more about the McElheny Award and award finalists here. Find all Big Poultry stories here.

Cathy Clabby leads a team of investigative / high-impact McClatchy journalists based at The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer.



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