By PETER SCHROEDTER
It’s the hottest flashpoint in the battle between modern agribusiness and traditional agriculture.
As in most debates, both sides in the conflict over mega hog barns and the family farms they are putting out of business have legitimate arguments in their favour. Which of those arguments you buy depends largely on what you value more: short-term financial gain or long-term rural sustainability.
The case for mega hog barns — also known as intensive livestock operations (ILOs) for hogs — is for the most part based on greater efficiency (economies of scale, automation, reduced labour expenses) which lowers production costs and retail prices compared both to traditional and innovative methods of sustainable pig farming.
Based on this bottom line alone, there is little doubt that the most efficient way to produce pork chops, ham and bacon is in a factory-style mega hog barn.
But things are not so clear-cut when you factor in all the costs, including the long-term social and environmental costs.
For mega hog barn operators, the obvious costs of doing business include barns and equipment, livestock, feed, labour, depreciation and what is usually called manure management. While most of these production costs are set by the marketplace, there is one major exception: manure management and disposal. It is the province’s environmental laws — and how well they are enforced — that determine the cost of disposing of millions of litres of liquified hog manure each year.
Hog ILOs are no different from mining companies that used to move in, mine an ore body and vanish once the ore was gone, leaving behind a mess for the taxpayer to clean up. Today, mining companies have to clean up and restore the site; the government makes them set aside some of their earnings to guarantee it. But this is not the case for Manitoba’s mega hog barns and the manure and pollution they may leave behind.
This is because the province has a conflict of interest. Like the Progressive Conservative government before it, the NDP government is working hard to ensure Manitoba's hog industry expands and prospers.
To be fair, governments are constantly struggling to create jobs in rural Manitoba, and politicians have tended to see ILOs as part of the solution. To set a tough environmental policy would send those ILOs packing to more lenient jurisdictions.
Yet the sought after benefits to the economy of expanding Manitoba’s hog industry have come at a severe social and economic cost to the province’s traditional pork producers.
Manitoba’s hog industry was established in the early homesteading days, but expansion didn’t hit full-throttle until 1995. That was when the Progressive Conservative majority provincial government did away with "single desk selling." By law since 1972, all pigs in the province had been bought and sold to meatpackers through an exclusive pork producer-run marketting board. This "single desk seller" set and paid all hog producers the same prices, using supply and demand to keep those prices high enough to sustain small producers. But when so-called dual marketting replaced the single desk, anyone could buy directly from any hog producer. The door was open for the hog industry’s biggest buyers — the corporate meatpackers like Schneider’s and Maple Leaf — to move in and privately negotiate the best deal with every hog producer, playing one off against the other until they lowered the price for all.
The end of single desk selling has effectively put most small-scale hog producers — the only ones still using the traditional methods of the family farm — out of business. These 50– to 100–sow hog farms have not been able to survive on the low prices offered by the new hog-packing plants. This loss of a family hog farm roughly every second day since 1990 is another hidden cost in the real price of pork.
So is the cost of disease outbreaks, like the avian flu now infecting poultry in BC. The outbreak is being contained by killing all the birds on all the farms at the taxpayers’ expense. This is an ILO problem, because the disease risk in ILOs is exaggerated compared to small, traditional farms. In part this is because there is no real genetic diversity in the food animals bred and fed in ILOs. The other reason is that crowding induces stress, and stress weakens an animal’s immune system. Yet the cost of killing, burying and containing the outbreak is paid for by the taxpayer. The ILO’s only liability is the loss of income while the barns sit empty.
Another cost of "cheap pork" that is outsourced to the taxpayer is maintaining the roads and bridges that keep the ILOs running. A constant procession of heavy trucks and spreaders haul feed in and pigs and manure out. Over 90 percent of the seven– to eight–million pigs now brought to market annually in Manitoba don’t even stay in the province. Yet the wear and tear on streets and highways isn’t repaired by those who profit from the trade, but by the ratepayers along the way.
A rural economy needs people to thrive. It is difficult to say how many more people might have moved to the country from the city if the rural landscape had smelled more of fresh mown hay than freshly applied hog manure.
Probably the most contentious cost of ILO pork production is water.
Most modern hog barns use a liquid manure handling system which requires massive volumes of water to keep the barns clean. Hog manure in its natural form is essentially a solid waste. Modern hog barns liquify this solid by mixing it with water until it is a thick fluid or slurry suitable for pumping from the barns into large holding lagoons or storage tanks. From there the slurry is eventually pumped or hauled onto farm land and spread, sprayed or injected underground as an organic fertilizer.
It takes millions of litres of water each year to dispose of the manure from a mega hog barn. This is a very inefficient system, because a ton of liquid hog slurry actually contains very little manure. Most of it is wasted water.
Then there is the risk of leakage from the manure storage lagoons or of tanks spilling the slurry into ground or surface water and contaminating wells, streams, rivers or lakes. Even when the slurry is hauled or pumped onto the land, if it isn’t spread thin enough it can run off and contaminate surface waters.
A much safer and more efficient method employed in Japan and other parts of Asia is what is called the "dry manure" and composting hog-manure management system. Some hog barns in Manitoba, Ontario and parts of the US are employing this system, too. Dry manure is easier to compost and dramatically reduces the offensive stench of intensive hog operations. It is also safer because it cannot spill or leak. Once composted, dry hog manure can be hauled much farther than slurry and spread more thinly over a greater area, reducing the risk of run off.
An innovative method to turn liquid hog manure into an asset feeds the slurry into a "digester" where bacteria break it down into solids and methane gas. The methane can then be used as fuel on the farm or sold like natural gas; the solids can be composted into fertilizer. The result is cleaner air, less wasted water and no chance of surface water or groundwater contamination.
Even standard liquid hog manure systems can be managed in an environmentally friendly way. But human nature being what it is — and Manitoba’s provincial enforcement capacity being what it is — some hog producers will do whatever they can get away with, especially when they feel economically pressured. And there is no doubt the pressure is on to find a positive bottom line in the pig business.
The provincial government is the only body that can ensure ILOs pay the full cost of the waste they generate. Yet the government is under tremendous pressure to leave things as they are. And that pressure will grow, because the single most important factor that attracted the mega hog barns to Manitoba is quickly disappearing, if it hasn’t gone already: cheap feed grain. Our grain farmers cannot afford to produce at a loss indefinitely. When the cheap grain dries up, the only major advantage Manitoba will have over most other potential hog ILO sites in North America is an accommodating provincial government and easy access to lots of water and cheap land to keep the manure flowing. If the government begins to push tough environmental regulations, the mega hog barns will pack their bags of investment capital and search for friendlier jurisdictions.
Urban consumers and environmental activists have the power to change how things are done in this province by voicing their legitimate concerns about the hidden costs of intensive livestock operations. They can also support those farmers who are struggling to provide alternative food sources produced in a more traditional way for grocery shelves. But they can only do this effectively by presenting the facts and making their case clearly, logically and persistently in public discussions. This is because it is the voting public that needs to understand who will pay the outstanding bill for all the cheap pork now being exported to the United States, Japan and other countries.
Perhaps we should put a levy on every pig produced
in the province. That way, when the time comes, we will have enough money
to pay for the real cost of our cheap pork.
Peter Schroedter is a former sheep rancher and a freelance agricultural columnist.
PLEASE NOTE: Some of these outlets aren't always in stock. Most also carry other WHS certified or organic meats, dairy and eggs. Prices can be as low as conventional pork or considerably higher. Some of the farmers will deliver.
A-1 Nutrition, Grant Park Shopping Centre
Ambrosia Organic Groceries, 684 Osborne St.
Clinton and Pamela Cavers, Pilot Mound, 825-2465
Bruce and Michaela Daum, Forrest, 727-8058
Forks Meat Market, The Forks
Frigs Natural Meats and More, 3515 Main St.
Harry’s Foods, 905 Portage Ave.
Ed and Debra Hodgins, Lenore, 838-2009
House of Nutrition, 770 Notre Dame Ave.
Scott & Jacoba Nault, Woodridge, 429-2281
Organic Bread Basket, 269-0658
Organza Foods, 664 Corydon Ave.
Sara’s Supermarket, 775 Westminster Ave.
Ian Smith, Argyle, 467-8590
Vita Health Natural Food Stores, various locations
Restaurant: Urban Ojas Restaurant and Juice Bar,
684 Osborne St.
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“This book is a rousing call to arms....I wish it were
required reading for every politician and every citizen in Canada and the
United States.” — Robert
Kennedy, Jr.
Read more of our coverage of "The Price of Pork"