Hundreds of residents showed up at a rally Sunday afternoon to voice their opposition to a chicken processing plant, which could be built in their neighborhood.

The rally was held on property off N.C. 97 in Southern Nash County near a site where Sanderson Farms is considering building its latest plant.

“We do not oppose jobs and economic development,” said Con Ward, a speaker at the rally. “We oppose an industry like Sanderson Farms that preys on vulnerable rural counties promising economic growth with low-paying jobs.”

On Nov. 1, the Nash County Board of Commissioners, in a 4-3 vote, rezoned 150 acres at the southeast quadrant of N.C. 97 and Interstate 95 to allow for general industrial development.

More than 200 residents came to the hearing to voice their opposition to the rezoning, which would allow more than 195 industrial uses, including a new Sanderson Farms poultry processing plant.

County officials have been courting Sanderson Farms, and company officials say the site is a finalist for the new plant.

Residents who live in communities in Southern Nash County and Wilson are fighting the proposed plant, saying their numbers exceed 800. They are collecting money for a legal battle.

The rally was well organized, with Nash County sheriff’s deputies directing traffic into the sweet potato farm field.

Protestors held up signs that read “No Slaughterhouse” with a chicken crossed out by a prohibition sign. One woman even donned a yellow chicken costume and waved to the hundreds of people as they drove into the field.

Speakers stood up on a trailer to make their arguments as the crowd cheered.

At a tent, people signed petitions opposing the project.

Residents say the plant would ruin their quality of life and could jeopardize the area’s drinking water supply and the Tar River.

Ward told the residents they were standing on property that is within a watershed-protected area as defined by the state.

“Across the street is a watershed critical protected area,” Ward said. “Both these important natural resources supply water to residents in Nash County and the city of Rocky Mount.”

He added that Nash County’s 2006 Land Development Plan clearly states that industrial areas are not to be located in watershed-protected areas.

“We keep asking our county officials, ‘Why are you putting our most important natural resource at risk?’” he said.

He said residents of Nash County and Rocky Mount do not want to play chicken with a vital resource — water.

The city of Wilson has similar concerns and has committed $1 million to fight the project. Wilson’s City Council also has threatened to cut off the drinking water the city supplies to Nash County.

But county officials who support the project say it will bring 1,100 much-needed jobs to the area and contend that there is a serious misperception about the plant, which they said would be high-tech, well-regulated and nothing like the plants of a couple of decades ago.

Proponents of the project also say that the plant and the spray field proposed to be located six miles west of the plant site would not pose an environmental risk.

But it is a tough sell to residents.

Jack Smith called out the names of nearby neighborhoods that are opposed to the plant, and residents cheered when their communities were identified.

“By you all showing up today, and you being here in large numbers, our voices will be stronger and our voices will be louder,” he said.