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Reverend Blair
Forum Super Elite   Posts: 2043  Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:59 am <strong>Written By:</strong> Reverend Blair
<strong>Date:</strong> 2004-10-14 08:59:00 <a href="/article/75937923-hog-wash">Article Link</a> <p>In an October 2000 <a href="http://www.nfu.ca/hogbarn-brief.htm">document</a> the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) noted, “Traditionally, farm families raised hogs in thousands of small and medium-sized barns on farms spread across rural Canada. Their barns held a few dozen to a few hundred sows. Often, these were diversified farms and these families used the hogs to "add value" to low quality feed grain; to diversify their operations and, thus, reduce risk; to provide winter work and work for younger family members; and to provide manure to fertilize field crops. Because hog numbers were small, production was dispersed, and the manure was kept dry, these farms created few problems such as manure leakage or odour.”</p> <p>There’s the reality of the situation. When our pork was being provided by small operations, actual farmers, the associated problems were minimal. That is no longer the case. Now water quality is affected; quality of life for those unfortunate to have one of these mega-barns spring up in their midst is virtually destroyed; yet another source of income for small, mixed farmers is threatened; and the overall health of agricultural communities is put at risk.</p> <p>The threats to health is something that is of increasing importance. In December of 2003 a study for the Lake Huron cottagers association found that run-off from farms and not septic tanks was responsible for increased pollution and beach closures in the area. In 2003 the American Public Health Association (APHA) released a <a href="http://www.apha.org/legislative/policy/2003/2003-007.pdf">report</a> requesting a moratorium on factory farms, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs. The report noted, among other things, that, “Manure pathogens capable of causing severe gastrointestinal disease, complications, and sometimes death in humans include Campylobacter and Salmonella species, as well as Listeria monocytogenes, Helicobacter pylori, and E coli O157:H7, and the protozoa Cryptosporidium parvum... CAFO manure wastes also include organic dust, molds, bacterial endotoxins and manuregenerated gases of up to 400 separate volatile compounds, such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, many of which are known airway irritants, allergens or respiratory hazards.</p> <p>Anyone who has been near one of these massive hog operations will have noticed the smell, it’s impossible not to. That smell should act as a warning to us, but those who make the profits tend to live in areas the smell does not reach. Most of us live where the smell does not reach. It is the reality of our increasingly urban world. That makes it much easier for those who profit from factory farming to fool us. Those who speak out against factory farming are often painted as animal rights “wackos”...vegetarians who would make pets out of farm animals, or radical environmentalists who would move our society back into caves and subsist by gathering nuts and berries.</p> <p>It is an easy picture to paint, but it is simply not true. Those who oppose factory farming are those who have to live with the results. They include farm people, veterinarians, health workers, biologists, urban and suburban planners, and people from all walks of life. They have smelled that warning smell, directly or indirectly and sensed the danger.</p> <p>The experience of rural people who have had hog barns go up near their property is most revealing as to how unfair the characterisations the factory farms give us really are. Consider the testimonials given to <a href="http://www.stopthehogs.com/index.htm">Stop the Hogs</a>, a Saskatchewan-based group dedicated to keeping huge hog operations out of their communities.</p> <p>Consider Joe Homenuk, who raises bison. He ran a 5,000 acre farm at one time, but has downsized to 500 acres in recent years. He is a farmer and is very familiar with raising livestock. Since Blue Sky Corporation installed a hog operation a half mile from his corrals and only 200 yards from his pasture, Mr. Homenuk cannot work in his shop and finds it difficult to work with his animals because the stench makes him physically ill.</p> <p>In addition to the smell, Homenuk has had water problems due to the practices of the Big Sky operation. Both the quality and quantity of his water have been affected and on one occasion his water supply line from a common spring was torched, presumably by employees of Big Sky.</p> <p>There is also the case of Leo Kurtenbach. According to Stop the Hogs, “Leo Kurtenbach, an elderly gentleman who has raised 50 - 100 pigs all of his life. A 900-pig barn was built near his home and now, when he wants to sell his land, he can’t. No one will buy it.”</p> <p>This man was a pig farmer all of his life. He ran a reasonably sized operation and is no doubt used to the smell of pig manure. He never kept 900 sows at a time though. His property was rendered virtually worthless because of its proximity to a new and needlessly large hog operation.</p> <p>Not being able to smell the poison does not put us out of its reach. Manure from hog operations does not simply disappear. It is usually stored in open lagoons, which are prone to overflowing during flood periods, then spread on nearby fields, often in amounts that the soil cannot absorb. The run-off ends up in our lakes and rivers.</p> <p>Lake Winnipeg, a lake that was relatively clean until a few years ago, is suddenly suffering beach closures and e-coli warnings on a regular basis. Algae blooms are depleting the oxygen in the lake, killing the fish. While there are several contributing factors to this, the inadequacy of the City of Winnipeg’s sewage treatment system being one, by far the major source of the pollution is agricultural run-off. Lake Winnipeg receives the water from the Red River, which runs through heavily used agricultural land from North Dakota through to lake Winnipeg. Effluent from hog barns and other livestock operations run off into the river especially during flood periods.</p> <p>Provincial and municipal governments like to downplay these effects, citing jobs created and tax money collected. The tax money collected is not enough to pay for the environmental clean-up of the damage done, however. The jobs are few and the wages are generally low. Much of the investment in hog barns comes from provincial governments in the form of grants, loan guarantees, and tax breaks, so even the capital investment is largely done without real benefit to the provinces.</p> <p>The phenomenon of huge fog farms either owned by or contracted to massive meat packing companies first appeared in the US in the 1980s. By the time the practice spread to Canada in the 1990s, many of the inherent problems were known or suspected but were ignored because of lucrative promises of jobs and increased tax income. Most of the hogs produced in these operations are not for the relatively small domestic market, but for export to the large Asian market.</p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.edcnews.se/Cases/Factoryfarming.html">Environment and Development Challenges News</a> more than half the world's pork and poultry are raise in factory farms and Asia has the fastest developing livestock sector. While that may help us to solve our domestic problems with pollution and health concerns due to factory farming, it does not bode well for international environmental efforts and, as we learned with the recent bird flu outbreaks, health concerns are no longer just a local concern.</p> <p>The Philippines has the largest hog farm in Asia, housing 100,000 pigs. The result has been predictable, environmental pollution and health problems. Groundwater contamination in the area has been dealt with by digging ever deeper wells and giving the local people access to those wells, but that is not a long-term solution. The people in the area accept it only because they desperately need the jobs, environmental legislation in the area is very lax, and there is little they can do about it.</p> <p>In Kampung India, the village recently emptied when Japanese encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease carried by pigs, caused two deaths in the village. The <A href="http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/99/0402/feat1.html">outbreak</a> worsened until there were 58 deaths and another 50 victims in special hospital wards.</p> <p>The risky farming and livestock rearing techniques pioneered in the west are being exported and adapted to other countries, most with even fewer safeguards against environmental and health disasters than we have in North America. The potential risk grows greater with every hog barn that goes up, yet we ignore the danger signs in favour of the quick money to be made. As became clear during the recent bird flu epidemics in Asia and British Colombia, the risk to human health increases exponentially with the number of animals housed in a single area.</p> <p>Canada needs to place a moratorium on the construction of large-scale hog operations immediately and work to enforce strict health and environmental regulations on all existing facilities immediately. Charges of animal cruelty need to be taken seriously, and the owners of these operations held personally responsible. Our current practices are inhumane, unhealthy, unsustainable and unwise.</p> <p>Not only do we need to stop ourselves, but we need to work with other nations through trade and training to convince them to move towards sustainable practices that do not endanger their citizens and workers.</p> | |
 
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