Media Contact:
Dr. Nancy Creamer, 919/515-9447
Mick Kulikowski, News Services, 919/515-3470

Oct. 28, 2002

NC State Gets Grant to Help Family Hog Farmers Compete

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A new North Carolina State University project designed to help small- and mid-sized family farmers compete with industrial-scale hog operations, protect the environment and support rural communities has won a $100,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The NC State team hopes to develop and promote an alternative production system that will allow independent hog producers to find economic success. Independent producers often find it hard to compete with vertically integrated corporate producers, and can have trouble accessing markets and facilities for slaughtering, processing and distributing.

The team believes that some consumers would prefer to buy pork raised with protecting the environment and welfare of the pigs in mind, says Dr. Nancy Creamer, director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, N.C., and the primary investigator for the grant.

"North Carolina faces a significant decline in the health and vitality of its rural communities in large part because of the loss of independent family farmers," Creamer said. "Although North Carolina leads the nation in the increase of hog numbers, it also has led the nation in the decline of hog farmers."

Since 1991, the number of hogs on N.C. farms has soared from 3.7 million to more than 10 million today, putting the state second in the nation in hog production. Most of these hogs are raised by farmers under contract with large companies.

The CEFS will play a lead role in bringing university faculty, members of nonprofit organizations and private producers together to explore alternative production and marketing systems, Creamer says.

CEFS is a joint project of NC State, N.C. A&T State University, the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, other state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, farmers and citizens. The 2,000-acre facility develops farming systems that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

The NC State grant is part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Food and Society Initiative. Launched in 2001, the Food and Society Initiative is inspired by a vision of a future food system that provides for all Americans safe and nutritious foods grown in a manner that protects the environment, promotes health, and brings economic development to both rural and urban communities.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 "to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations." Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions and healthy communities.

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