With the elections approaching, Marylanders are considering what makes a worthy candidate. Will they fight for the people of Maryland? Or are they beholden to special interests? Unfortunately, many of our state’s past elected officials — Republicans and Democrats alike — have a history of yielding to the powerful poultry chicken industry at the expense of the health of the Chesapeake Bay and our local communities.
This election season we can change that — and a new poll makes it clear voters want elected officials who will finally hold the poultry industry accountable.
Maryland’s poultry industry has undergone explosive growth in recent decades. Poultry companies like Perdue and Mountaire Farms have installed massive factory farm operations along our Eastern Shore, raising unsustainable numbers of chickens in inhumane conditions. Maryland factory farms produce 39% more chickens today than they did in 1998, on an increasingly consolidated number of farms.
More chickens means more waste. Food & Water Watch research found that Maryland’s poultry industry produces as much as three times the waste as the human inhabitants of Eastern Shore counties. More poultry waste means increased nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, making this industry the largest source of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay — and one of the reasons that states are not on track to meet the 2025 deadline for reducing Bay pollution.
Chicken factory farms are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color, causing adverse health outcomes like asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory conditions. These operations are also associated with unhealthy levels of nitrate in drinking water, which can lead to cancer and birth defects.
Yet these multi-billion-dollar companies have largely managed to evade state oversight, profiting at the expense of contract growers, communities, and the environment.
For decades, Maryland’s leadership has allowed powerful industrial agriculture interests to pollute our environment and jeopardize the health of frontline communities. Legislation has been introduced in Annapolis year after year to fix this problem, but even modest proposals to simply monitor pollution from factory farms have never made it out of a committee. Maryland’s major climate legislation has left the poultry industry unscathed, despite the sector’s significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Tell us who these candidates are!
As long as they’re NOT Democrats – that would be worse for the country….
The Chesapeake Bay water is polluted way before it gets to Maryland. The chicken industry creates thousands of jobs that help support all businesses on the Eastern Shore. If the chicken industry is legislated out of business, lots and lots of business will close, suppressing the standard of living even more than it is now .
Every time something like this comes out, people turn to blame the poultry industry. Nothing is considered coming from North of the Mason Dixon line. Let them eat cake!
On the west side of the bay bridge they have overbuilt housing developments along the many miles of shore land along the bay and the rivers that connect to it. All of the runoff from the housing developments and roadways do quite a bit of harm to the bay. Why don’t they talk about that? What about the rivers flowing out of Pennsylvania dumping tons of pollution into the bay? What about all of the cargo ships that move through the bay? I really don’t what to think about all the pollution that comes out of Baltimore into the bay. Yet lets blame the chicken farmers. If the United States was a circus, Maryland is where all the clowns are.
It starts in PA. Until they are held accountable all Annapolis will do is point at the farmers (one of the major pillars of America).
Quit picking on Farmers! I like to eat chicken, don’t you? Look for polluters on the other side of the bridge and Stop Blaming the Eastern Shore!
These same morons that want to blame the chicken farmers are the same ones that used to live “over the bridge” but didn’t like the fact that we have it better here. So they pack up, move to the eastern shore and bring their stupid ideas and propaganda with them. If you don’t like what we are for (safety, hard work, morals, freedom and open air) please go back across the bridge and forget how to come back.
Headline says “Opinion” so who’s opinion is this ??
More nonsense from the NIMBYs.
NY, PA and the Western Shore are not compliant but have larger populations (voters) so blame the Easter Shore.
Subtract all the direct and indirect beneficiaries of the poultry industry and you won’t be left with much. Poultry and its related suppliers and vendors are highly regulated already.
Disclaimer: Have no direct or indirect ties to the industry, etc but can think things through.
then why are all the dead zones in the bay along the western shore? granted perdue and the likes are privately held companies making millions while polluting the bay the land and the air. they do need to be reigned in!