A survey conducted last September shows residents in Duplin County and Sampson County, N.C., are positive about local community, the impact of agriculture and the promise of renewable energy projects on farms. According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, Duplin County was the No. 1 top pig-producing county and Sampson County was the No. 2 county.
According to this survey of 500 registered voters, conducted by CHS & Associates, 9 in 10 voters view the community as a good, very good or great place to live.
“There’s a misperception out there that people don’t want to live in these communities because of negative impacts from agriculture. Our survey found just the opposite. People love living here, enjoy spending time outdoors, and overwhelmingly view agriculture as having a positive impact locally,” Pat McFerron, president of CHS & Associates, said in a release.
Proposed biogas projects that will enable pig farmers to generate renewable gas (RNG) on their farms were addressed in the survey, the release said. The survey showed overwhelming support for RNG projects — by a 6-to-1 margin, voters support efforts by farmers to cover lagoons, capture gases and generate renewable energy.
Other notable survey findings noted in the release include:
• 89% of voters rate Duplin and Sampson County as a good (35%), very good (18%) or great (36%) place to live. Only 10% view it as not so great (7%) or not great at all (3%). The best thing about living here: The people (36%) and the rural environment (24%).
• The most pressing issues facing the community are COVID-19 (15%), economy/jobs (12%) and crime (10%). Other top-rated concerns include a lack of amenities (6%), government leadership (5%) and infrastructure needs (5%).
• 2 out of 3 residents participate in outdoor activities at least once a week, with about half of the residents enjoying outdoor activities several times a week (30%) or every day (19%).
• 77% of residents view the impact of the local agriculture industry as very (54%) or somewhat (23%) positive, compared with 16% who view the industry’s impact as somewhat (10%) or very (6%) negative.
• 73% of residents view the impact of the pork industry as positive, most often pointing to jobs and economic impact (63%). Only 14% of respondents viewed the industry’s impact as negative. The positive view of the industry spans generations with the strongest numbers coming from those under those under 45 and over 75 years of age.
• More than 8 in 10 residents agree that hog farming is an important contributor to the local economy.
• 54% of voters indicated that they live within two miles of a hog farm. Of those, 84% said they had never experienced any issues related to the farm nearest their house. Only 11% of residents living within two miles of a farm have experienced issues with odor.
• Surprisingly, those who live within two miles of a farm expressed fewer concerns with farms than those who live further than two miles away.
• Residents do not consider odor from nearby farms to be a serious concern. 43% said they do not notice odor from farms, while an additional 20% categorized the odor as mild, and an additional 17% said that odor was rare. Fewer than 20% of residents considered odor to be strong (10%) or constant (19%).
• Only 1% of residents said farms have made their community a worse place to live.
In addition, the survey revealed some misunderstandings about North Carolina’s pork industry. For example, 20% of voters believe that the number of hog farms in their community has increased over the past 10 years. In reality, a moratorium on the construction of new hog farms in North Carolina has been in place since 1997.
Editor’s Note: The poll was conducted September 20-27 by CHS & Associates on behalf of the NC Pork Council. The responses of 500 registered voters in Duplin and Sampson County were collected by live agents on mobile (38%) and landline (37%) telephones and through a text-to-web system (25%). The confidence interval associated with this sample is that 95% of the time the results are within 4.3% of the true values.
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
NC Pig Farmer: Change Has Got to Start Somewhere
Smithfield Foods Generates Renewable Natural Gas from Wastewater
