HOGS R US?

The political row over raising hogs has reached Illinois. And policy-makers have stepped into a messy debate on regulating corporate pig producers.

Analysis by Edward Field

16 ¦ April 1996 Illinois Issues

After three years of wrangling in the legislature and the courts, the state approved a law regulating the hog industry.

It turned out to be quite a fight: Opponents accused pork interests of buying votes, the governor said the future of the state's economy was at stake and protesters gathered on the Statehouse steps waving signs reading, "Factory hog farmers go home."

That was 1995 in Iowa, the country's biggest pork producing state. By all accounts, the struggle there is not over. But get ready, because the political row over raising hogs has reached Illinois.

And make no mistake. Though proposed regulations before the General Assembly this spring are aimed at all livestock operations, the problem is pigs. The debate is about changes in the hog industry and the way hogs are raised — and their impact on the local economy and the environment.

Illinois is sure to take the issue seriously because the state is the fourth largest producer of hogs — after Iowa, North Carolina and Minnesota — and receipts from hog sales are just over $1 billion annually.

But the move to regulate the industry picked up momentum when the first large-scale producers — the ones at the root of the controversy — began moving here. With them came the same concerns that consumed Iowans and the residents of a dozen other hog-raising states.

Critics say that the new mass producers of hogs — who raise animals by the many thousands — wipe out small-scale farming operations and present threats to air quality and water supplies.

Residents in several western Illinois counties are already sensitive to these issues. In Greene County, along the lower Illinois River, where Hanor Farms plans to raise 200,000 hogs a year at two sites, locals have expressed fears that the sewage from the farms will contaminate groundwater.

Upriver in Cass County, where Land O' Lakes aims to produce 45,000 hogs a year, residents have organized. They've filed suit against the Land O' Lakes project, arguing that existing agricultural regulations for manure disposal are insufficient. For one thing, members of Cass County Residents and Neighbors for a Healthy Environment fear the potential smell. They worry that the stench from seven acres of planned manure lagoons will lower property values.

Alan Haberman, a former farmer and one of those opposing the project, also worries large corporations will put farmers with small operations out of work. "We will fight it, even if we go down swinging," he says.

With such rumblings at the local level, it was only a matter of time before the state would get involved. In late 1994, two Republican lawmakers from western Illinois — Sen. Laura Kent Donahue of Quincy and Rep. Richard Myers of Colchester — began holding informal hearings that included pork producers, local activists and officials from several agencies. But it also quickly became apparent that resolving the problem would be no easy matter.

"We tried to bring everyone together and say, 'These are the facts; now how can we address the concerns,'" Myers says. "But pretty soon, we realized we could not get an agreement."

That's when the governor's Livestock Industry Task Force stepped in, and a legislative agenda was crafted in earnest. Task force members, who represent grain farmers and pork, sheep and beef producers, originally were charged with reviewing a range of issues affecting the livestock industry.

Last summer they narrowed their focus. In February, they issued a set of recommendations for regulating the hog industry that became the basis for legislation sponsored by Donahue and Myers.

Donahue believes the task force addressed key issues concerning large-scale facilities, especially the handling of hog waste. She also promotes the proposals as the most workable political compromise.

"From a legislative point of view, we wanted a consensus so we would not fight it out in the General Assembly and get nowhere. We need something on the books, so that if new companies are coming in, we have something in place."

But not everyone found the task force report acceptable. One of the most vocal critics has been the Illinois Citizens for Responsible Practices, a coalition of farmers and rural residents who have already clashed with large pig operations. The coalition, which was represented on the task force, believes existing laws are inadequate to regulate the number of hogs typically confined at large-scale swine facilities. Critical of the reform efforts, the group issued its own set of recommendations, including tougher rules on the siting of new hog lots and tighter regulations on manure storage.

"We were totally unsatisfied with what was put forward because it did not change what already exists," says Renee Robinson, executive director of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, which has worked closely with the coalition.

But even the chairman of the state Senate Agriculture Committee expressed reservations. Chrisman Republican Harry "Babe" Woodyard, a farmer himself, believes the proposals don't address some of the issues surrounding the siting of new hog facilities.

He bases his concern on experience with a commercial operation that went up in Edgar County in his eastern Illinois district. He believes not enough planning went into the selection of that site.

"We don't want to shun or impinge on these corporate hog operations, but it seems we should have some prequalification standards," Woodyard says. "When the operation came into my home county, they did not check to see if there was an adequate water supply, so now they need a lake. They did not have adequate land to spread manure and they had no [proper] road. We should have some criteria to prepare for these things. And the current bills don't go far enough."

Despite Donahue's confidence, the concerns raised by Woodyard and local activists indicate there are enough serious questions to prolong the controversy.

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Although the opening rounds of the Illinois debate center on quality of life, including the issue of smell, there is much more at stake. At bottom, this is about the economic restructuring underway in that industry — a fundamental shift that has alarmed small farmers and driven much of the opposition to the new facilities. The hog industry, following in the tracks of the poultry industry, has been moving toward larger production facilities run by co-ops or corporations. And this in turn has displaced thousands of small producers. In 1980, there were 670,350 hog farmers in the United States, compared to 208,780 in 1994. In Illinois, the number of hog farmers is about half what it was 10 years ago, according to Dale Lattz, an extension specialist with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1985, there were 19,500 farms in the state that raised hogs. In 1994, there were 11,000.

"In the Midwest, we have traditionally been family operated, and raising hogs was generally part of a farm that also raised corn and soybeans and probably cattle too," Lattz says. But because factory-type operations can produce individual commodities more competitively, many farmers have specialized, shifting to grains only, or dairy or hogs. And many small farmers have ended up getting out of hogs entirely or raising animals owned by large companies.

No state has seen this trend toward corporate ownership more than North Carolina, where 80 percent of all hogs are raised on farms that have more than 2,000 head, compared to 35 percent in Illinois and 23 percent in Iowa. Thanks to that trend, North Carolina has boosted its hog production from modest levels in the 1970s to second place in the nation, displacing Illinois from that spot only recently.

And the result is that the state is covered with huge hog barns, where workers must shower down each day for disease control, where feeding and stall sluicing takes place automatically and where thousands of hogs are raised each year without ever seeing the light of day.

The implications of this system are enormous. And an overarching one is the elimination of thousands of smaller producers — which is why many farm groups that champion "family farms" remain resolutely opposed to the large hog confinements. Such groups as the Farmers Union and the American Agriculture Movement have fought the large farms in many states. And many liken the modern approach to a corporate takeover of yet another branch of agriculture — one that turns traditional farmers into "indentured servants," in the words of Renee Robinson of the Stewardship Alliance.

Though economic resistance lies behind much opposition to large hog facilities, that's not to say other concerns aren't significant. Smell is certainly one of them. A 15,000-hog facility can release a stench that can churn even the hardiest agricultural stomach, and the problem is exacerbated by the standard practices for handling wastes.

If they can land a man on the moon! Profs scramble to gel the stink out of pig scat Because one of the most pressing issues in the pork regulation debate is the stench of manure, it's no surprise that efforts have been made to take the stink out of it. In fact, with about 150 firms offering some kind of hog odor abatement, it has become an industry in its own right. Some of it is quackery and some of it is highbrow university research. Commercial remedies range from adding yucca plant extracts to hog feed to an Australian eucalyptus potion sprayed into barns to reduce overall smell. An Illinois firm, International Technologies Inc., offers a "thermal depolymerization" process that breaks down manure into dry fertilizer, fuel and other inoffensive components. On the bizarre side, a firm at a hog conference last year was selling a variety of metal rods that can be dipped into manure lagoons and that wick out toxic substances. (They also offered pocket-sized ones that could be placed on the forehead to clear bad thoughts.) Meanwhile, hog odor is also pursued vigorously at academe. At Iowa State University, researchers have been looking into mixing kiln dust with manure — and claim that by a series of cunning measures they have unearthed a method that will reduce the smell of manure by as much as 90 percent. Such research will no doubt increase. Across the country, millions of dollars are being freed up to address the issue. Western Illinois University is testing additives to control odor. And the federal farm bill included a $100 million program — since scaled down — to fund solutions to livestock-engendered environmental and odor problems. The nuts and bolts of such research is hard work. At Iowa State, developing odor abatement involves using an "olfactometer" and a lot of unfulfilling hours whiffing hog dung. Human guinea pigs sit at four "sniffing stations" sticking their noses into steel cones. By way of a tangle of steel valves and pipes, they are exposed to various samples of pig gas to see if the odor abatement has worked. Volunteers might not be beating down the doors, but there is no doubt the "olfactometer" has promise. Any machine that helps to detect a whiff of something "off" has its uses. Perhaps even at the Capitol. - Edward Field

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Millions of gallons of waste are stored in large football-field-sized lagoons, and waste is often applied to fields using manure guns that shoot the liquid manure 50 feet into the air. In many states, neighbors who are drenched in odors have filed suits against such facilities, arguing they have made their homes — and lives — unbearable.

The manure issue is also at the heart of other environmental concerns. A 15,000-hog facility can produce the sewage equivalent of a smaller-sized city. What happens to it? Most farmers know immediately that such volumes of manure cannot be applied to a few hundred acres without drenching cropland and sending the runoff into streams and field drainage lines.

Storage of the manure also presents problems when farmers rely on earthen-walled lagoons that are poorly constructed. In North Carolina, where some wells have already been contaminated by suspected lagoon seepage, even more drastic environmental hazards arose last year when some lagoons broke.

Five spills in 1995 captured headlines, and one that followed heavy rains last year led to a massive spill of 25 million gallons of manure — twice the volume of the Exxon Valdez oil spill — leaving fields knee-deep in sludge, and causing 17 miles of fish kills in the New River. Spills in Iowa last year led to similar fish kills in the South Iowa River.

Beyond the potential for such contamination, Sen. Woodyard raises a concern about the water supply. Massive quantities of water are required to service large hog populations. In fact, some of the facilities draw so much water that nearby farmers have reported loss of well-water. In Iowa's Wright County, where dozens of huge confinements have been built in the past few years, several wells have run dry.

So how will Illinois address these problems? The proposed law makes a good effort to tackle environmental concerns, but critics argue it would cover too few farms.

It includes obviously sensible moves: requiring all new manure lagoons to be registered and laying down some rules on how they should be built (using federal guidelines). It would allow the state Department of Agriculture to force changes in plans for building new facilities and would extend that authority to existing lagoons if groundwater is threatened.

As for the critical issue of what to do with the manure, larger operations would be required to develop official management plans and to have trained people implement them. The purpose of the plans would be to make sure that manure is disposed of properly so that cropland is not saturated and excess manure doesn't drain into streams and groundwater.

20 ¦ April 1996 Illinois Issues

This, on the surface at least, would appear to be a step in the right direction. "The manure management plan was the best thing about our law," says Barbara Grabner of PrairieFire, an activist group based in Des Moines that fought for environmental additions to Iowa's law last year.

However, speaking from experience, Grabner adds, "The devil is in the details." And one immediate small-print problem has already cropped up in Illinois. The task force recommended that only farms with more than 7,000 animal units be required to file a management plan with the agriculture department. That, in hog terms, is 17,500 adult animals, a very large number for any one site. No one, including the department, knows exactly how many, if any, farms would fall into that category. The Illinois Pork Producers Association, however, insists that it also applies to farms with over 2,000 sows plus piglets, which would cover 30 percent of the farms in the state.

Critics have argued that the threshold should be lower. They have also pointed out that in the current proposals farms with 2,400 to 17,500 hogs (still quite big) would merely be required to produce something called a "general waste management plan" — and the proposals don't say what it should contain.

Even where guidelines are specified, as in the case of the bigger farms, there is further disagreement about details. The proper ways to apply manure include many complicated agronomic considerations of crop type and drainage conditions — and the proposals invoke existing Illinois Environmental Protection Agency guidelines. Opponents say they are not sufficiently specific and don't go far enough.

However, few states have sorted out the minutiae of appropriate regulations. Iowa is still making rules through a newly created Animal Agriculture Consulting Organization. And so is North Carolina. The law in that state requires all farms with more than 250 hogs to file manure management plans. But as late as February, regulators and industry and community representatives were still battling it out over what such plans should include.

Even Minnesota, which some argue has the most stringent rules regulating manure disposal and lagoon siting, has treated the issue carefully.

Although that state has carved some rules in stone, compliance with some "best management practices" remain voluntary. "There are so many variables that you have to have different standards. And the legislature does not want to put all of them into a statute because it leaves no flexibility," notes Bill Oemichen, that state's deputy commissioner of agriculture.

However, Minnesota does insist on planning ahead by requiring permits, something Illinois appears unlikely to do. For example, that state requires approval of manure management plans and soil studies before new facilities can be built.

"We have found if you do it upfront, you will have a much better managed facility," says Oemichen.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, several other provisions of the proposed regulations have come under fire. One is the recommended level of fines. The measure originally called for a $250 fine for not filing a plan. At press time, that amount had been raised to $5,000.

Another is setbacks — the distance between farms and nearby houses, a key issue in the debate over odor. The task force recommended a distance of one-half mile from the nearest house for farms with 7,000 or more units, or more than 17,500 adult hogs. For farms with fewer hogs, the required distance decreases to a minimum of a quarter-mile for farms with more than 70 hogs.

This compares to tougher limits in Iowa, where a half-mile setback (2,500 feet) is required of all farms with more than 8,000 hogs.

The Illinois Citizens for Responsible Practices recommended a minimum setback of three-quarters of a mile for all farms with more than 1,200 hogs, arguing that the health impacts of the odor merit tougher treatment.

However, Illinois' proposals look quite tough next to North Carolina, which simply requires that all hog farms with more than 250 animals be 1,500 feet (or just over one-fourth mile) from the nearest house, and half a mile from the nearest church or school.

Minnesota, meanwhile, leaves setbacks to the counties.

Where to now? There is almost certainly a narrow limit to the amount of regulation that legislators — and the industry — will sustain. That is because many other states — Oklahoma and Missouri among them — have continued to attract large hog-facility production without placing any major restrictions on the industry.

Agriculture Director Rebecca Doyle makes that point: "If we pass a law in Illinois that keeps out the large operators, they are going to locate somewhere else. And even if they locate in Oklahoma or Canada, they are still going to have the same impact on the livestock sector."

Indeed, Illinois cannot take the industry for granted. The state's swine herd has been shrinking in recent years: It was down by 8 percent last year, while other states have continued to gobble up market share. North Carolina was up by another 13 percent.

The growth in some newfound hog states has been downright spectacular. Over the last five years, Mississippi's swine herd was up by 65 percent, Oklahoma's by a huge 375 percent.

As legislators contemplate regulations, they should be aware that the competition will get tighter.

Anyone who has doubts about where the industry is headed can look to Milford, Utah.

A massive hog facility is planned there that will turn out 2 million hogs annually. It will smell, it will suck up huge amounts of water and — more than likely — it will put further pressure on Illinois' hog business.

Legislators will have to bear that in mind when they regulate in Springfield.

Edward Field, who lives in Chicago, has previously written for Illinois Issues about federal agriculture policy and the Chicago Board of Trade.

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