Abstract
The article investigates African American community views on the development of hog-farm-based biogas production in rural North Carolina. In 2023, five focus groups (N = 51) were conducted in Sampson County, the site of the first large-scale biogas project in North Carolina. The results suggest a prevalence of a “social gap” in the outlook of the residents, that is, they favored biogas as a source of renewable energy in general but opposed its development for their area. A hierarchical-nested analytical model of the “social gap” is developed and compared with the positions of other biogas supporters and detractors in the state. African American community views were closer to anti-biogas advocates, such as environmentalists, in asserting that biogas capture will do little to alleviate the most hazardous impacts of hog farming associated with large-scale manure discharges in surrounding farm areas. However, residents also considered biogas as having a potential for positive economic and environmental impacts, a position that was more in line with the stance of pro-biogas developers and state regulators.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
