In North Carolina, the House of Representatives' Agriculture Committee wants to spend $200,000 on a study of hog farm odors.

The request was inspired by efforts of citizens groups to eliminate the unpleasant smells that accompany hog raising, says Walter Cherry, executive director of the North Carolina Pork Producers Council. These efforts led to a bill that might have shut down the $1 billion-a-year industry. "It had 22 pages of government regulations," Cherry recalls. "It was so restrictive that our farmers could not have abided... and been able to operate."

Hence a compromise, which if passed would vault North Carolina State University to the forefront of scientific study of hog odors. "Very little, if any, research has been conducted on [hog] odor," state Rep. Vance Alphin, the Democrat who came up with the proposal, told the Charlotte Observer.

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