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Minnesota Lawmakers Support Hog Alternatives
New legislation addresses air quality, marketing and research on low-cost, innovative production systems.


By Brian DeVore

7/24/97: The Minnesota Legislature is no stranger to livestock concentration issues. But the recently concluded 1997 session marks the first time legislation to hold factory farms accountable to their neighbors was passed alongside initiatives promoting alternative production systems that eliminate the environmental problems created by factory facilities in the first place. Here are some highlights of the session:

red ballHydrogen sulfide enforcement

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is now required by law to develop a protocol for enforcing air quality standards related to hydrogen sulfide emissions. This legislation provides $163,000 the first year and $92,000 the second year for air quality monitoring and compliance activities around manure lagoons.

The law requires the MPCA to use portable survey instruments, a strategy likely to make the agency better able to respond to citizen complaints from a wide geographic area. Permanent monitoring stations provide accurate readings at a few specific sites, but leave little room for responding to complaints from different parts of the state. MPCA officials must report back to the House and Senate in 1998 on their efforts to resolve the hydrogen sulfide problem.

This legislation is the result of intense lobbying on the part of Land Stewardship Project (LSP) members and other rural residents who have experienced symptoms of hydrogen sulfide poisoning within the past few years. Last year, LSP and a group of citizens used state-of-the art monitoring equipment to test air quality in the vicinity of several lagoons in Renville County.

They found many of the lagoons were in violation of state hydrogen sulfide standards. They also found there was no protocol in place to take action on facilities producing excessive amounts of the toxic gas.

"I don't want this to happen to anyone else," says Julie Jansen, whose rural Olivia home is within a mile of two large manure lagoons. She and her family have experienced blackout periods, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms of hydrogen sulfide poisoning during the past few years. "I'm really excited about the legislation. Now we just need to see if the MPCA will do its job."

The Legislature also mandated that anyone proposing to construct or expand a livestock facility with a capacity of 500 animal units or more shall provide notice to each resident and each property owner within 5,000 feet of the construction site. Currently, many rural residents only learn of a new livestock factory in the neighborhood after it is under construction, giving them no opportunity to provide input into whether such a facility should be allowed into their community.

red ballMarketing help

In a fit of common sense that's all too rare these days, the Minnesota Legislature recognized the potential for alternative hog farming techniques to get at the heart of at least one major problem with conventional pork production: odor.

For example, a grant program was created by the Legislature for groups of farmers who are trying to process livestock. Value-added on-farm processing has proven to be an effective way for sustainably produced commodities to access profitable markets. Under the provisions of the new program, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture can make grants of up to $50,000 each for feasibility, marketing analysis and pre-design of facilities.

LSP member and Boyd, Minn., hog farmer Dennis Timmerman testified before lawmakers about the many obstacles he and 14 of his neighbors have faced during the past three years in establishing their own pork processing facility.

"I thought I knew a lot, but we've had plenty of expensive obstacles to overcome," says Timmerman of the Prairie Farms Cooperative, which plans on opening a plant in New London, Minn., this fall. "That $50,000 would be helpful for anyone doing something like what we're doing."

red ballAlternative systems

Tucked away in a bill funding efforts to reduce odors at conventional facilities is an even more direct form of support for sustainable farming systems: $125,000 for hog production alternatives research. The grant, which will be administered by the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA), will go to study the Swedish system, pasture production and low-cost structures such as "hoop houses. "Sustainable agriculture experts say more money for hog alternatives research couldn't have come at a better time.

"We're getting calls from farmers looking for ideas on alternative production methods, but we're pretty limited in this area as of now," says Don Wyse, director of MISA.

Wyse says $125,000 won't go far if MISA tries to build a research facility from scratch, but it could be stretched further if it's applied in conjunction with on-farm research. Even more exciting, says Wyse, are the possibilities of doing alternative hog research in conjunction with the Leopold Center, MISA's counterpart at Iowa State University. "This could very well be the seed money to develop an alternative swine production center in the region," he adds.

Mark Honeyman, an animal scientist at Iowa State University, has been conducting research on alternative hog systems in that state for the past eight years and has come up with some surprising findings. For example, although low-cost structures such as hoop houses may not be the choice of high-tech industrial operators, they are quite competitive economically, mostly because of the low construction cost: $50 per pig space as opposed to $160 per pig space for a confinement facility. Because of this, a hoop structure with deep straw bedding can produce pigs for about $1.50 per hundredweight cheaper, according to Iowa State University statistics and results from Canadian hog trials (the hoop structure technology was developed in Canada).

Honeyman says hoop structures -- open-ended Quonset huts constructed of heavy fabric stretched over a metal frame -- in particular have caught on in recent years, especially as more companies manufacture them in the Midwest and offer package deals that include feeders and watering systems. The animal scientist has received calls on his hoop structure research from farmers in Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and the Dakotas. More than 200 people showed up for an Iowa State University conference on swine production alternatives last year -- more than double the expected turn out.

But more research needs to be done if alternative systems are to catch on widely, says Honeyman. Side-by-side economic comparisons are needed between conventional and alternative systems. Then there are the details: Is the high amount of heat produced by the manure-straw pack that's such a plus in the wintertime a detriment in the summer? How can manure spreaders be improved to distribute the pack material more evenly in fields? How can pork production that relies on drugs, gates and wastewater systems be replaced with systems that rely on natural animal behavior, sustainable nutrient cycling and good husbandry management?

"The confinement systems we have right now are the result of 30 years of research and development," says Honeyman. "The alternatives are based on just a few years' research and development."

Brian DeVore (Brian.A.Devore-1@tc.umn.edu) is editor of the Land Stewardship Letter, a publication of the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project.

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