"Peak Pig" -- EHN Probes Hog Production in Rural America

"[Environmental Health News] sent reporters to the heart of hog production—North Carolina and Iowa, the two highest producing states—to see firsthand how the booming industry is re-shaping the rural U.S.

In North Carolina, hog workers are Guinea pigs of antibiotic resistance and the state's industry titans consistently battle with neighbors in court. In Iowa, a bipartisan undercurrent of rebellion is pushing for local control and a re-imagining of 21st Century farm life. Meet the characters raising hogs on pasture, without metal cages or drugs. Learn how renewable energy ideas may put a dent in manure piles and methane loads.

Hog farming consolidation has forever reshaped farm communities. Peak Pig takes readers to the frontlines of controversy in the countryside and investigates what it means to be rural in an age of mega-farms. "

Brian Bienkowski, Lisa Song, Lindsey Konkel, and Elizabeth Ouzts report for Environmental Health News in a series that ran November 13-17.