The H20 Project Group

With more than 2 million migrant workers finding food processing jobs in rural America, their struggle to find adequate health care remains elusive.

Lower Eastern Shore residents live among tens of millions of chickens being raised for poultry companies like Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods and Mountaire Farms. As they urge state and local lawmakers to curb the growing billion-dollar industry, they face stiff opposition.They've pressed elected officials to study how those chickens — and all that manure — affect the air they breath. Studies suggest the chickens' dust, dander, and ammonia can affect neighbors' health. But as they urged the Maryland General Assembly to fund a local study, the poultry industry pushed back with more studies that show the opposite — that the chicken farms have no negative health impacts. Eventually, the poultry industry trade group, Delmarva Poultry Industry (DPI), joined forces with the Campbell Foundation and the Maryland Department of Environment, which is charged with regulating poultry farms. The group proposed their own air monitoring project to collect data at two locations on the Lower Eastern Shore. That project has yet to begin.Meanwhile, the community fighting for new legislation in Maryland’s General Assembly to create some limits for the state's chicken industry.The WYPR News series The Politics of Poultry on Maryland's Eastern Shore explores what happens when the community rasies questions about their health and the powerful industry behind the massive chicken farms next door.