By Catherine M. Welch
Wilmington, NC – State Representative Carolyn Justice introduced legislation Tuesday helping hog farmers pay for new technology to replace their lagoons.
Researchers out of NC State have rolled out five alternatives to the lagoon, but those options come with a price tag of up to $300,000. Hog farmers have said that's too expensive. So the Pender County Republican has filed a bill offering a pool of money that she says farmers can apply for to help pay for the cost.
Most of these farmers don't have the money to invest in putting these technologies on their farms in order to get them to that point of being economically feasible.
The $50-million fund would be available over five years helping roughly a hundred hog farmers. North Carolina ranks second behind Iowa in swine production in the United States.