Back in the 1990s, when three-site hog production was taking off and farmers were building much larger barns, neighbours got angry about the odours.
I was a member of the Agriculture Research Institute of Ontario at the time, and we were asked for our advice about the issue.
At that time, North Carolina announced a multi-million research program surrounding manure odours, and I felt there would be little Ontario could add to that massive effort.
Instead I suggested a much less costly approach: engage master’s-degree students of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University to study the dynamics of organized opposition to these hog barns.
My suggestion went nowhere because OMAFRA stuck to University of Guelph and would not even talk to WLU.
Today, maybe Carolina’s hog industry wishes it had gone that route instead. It is being challenged by lawsuits launched by angry neighbours of large hog operations.
So far Smithfield Farms has lost the first three cases. Another 23 lie ahead. The judge for the most recent case awarded the neighbours $474 million. State legislation caps fines at $100 million, so the three cases so far add up to $300 million.
Now Gregg Schmidt, Smithfield’s president of hog production, says “the best way to avoid being sued is to be proactive and be a good neighbour.”
The sociology student who might have been assigned to the issue probably would have identified how farmers and residents within the odour cone could be better neighbours.
Another of the unfortunate aspects of the Smithfield situation is that independent farmers who own the land and build the barns and have signed hog-production contracts with Smithfield’s Murphy-Brown subsidiary are responsible for manure management and odour.
The lawsuits are against Smithfield, which has money, and not against the farmers, who don’t have much. But Smithfield is no longer contracting with the farmer involved in the first court case. He’s stuck with no income and debt on seven huge barns.
And there remains a possibility that Smithfield could pull out of North Carolina, perhaps moving to remote locations on the Prairies where it probably should have gone in the first place to be closer to feed supplies.
Smithfield president Kenneth Sullivan has, in fact, said the company might consider relocation. That could also involve its processing plant at Tar Hill, the largest in the world with capacity to slaughter 30,000 market hogs per day.
It, too, has faced environmental pollution issues.
And then there’s the issue of hurricanes that bring ocean waves surging across the flatlands of Eastern Carolina and heavy rains that fill manure lagoons to overflowing. Yuck!
So what lessons can we in Ontario learn?
One is that bigger is not better unless you can also resolve related issues, and in this case manure odours are a big issue.
Another is that Ontario’s research efforts would be better spent looking at niche opportunities and issues that it’s in a good position to explore rather than trying to copy the big, deeper-pockets mainstream leaders.
Yes, me-too research is important to validate original findings, but I’m not convinced we ought to be spending our money that way.
So what has all that big spending on manure odours come up with so far? Well, in North Carolina they say one of the best solutions is putting covers over the manure lagoons. Cutting-edge technology, eh?
And in Iowa they say it’s knifing manure into the ground, yet in North Carolina the “experts” still advocate spraying it up in the air – for organic fertility reasons.
