The Union Farmer Quarterly/Fall 2001

In fact, that perception is essentially correct, despite the claims that large modern operations have better safeguards than older farms with systems that pre-date today's level of environmental awareness. Big or small, nobody should be allowed to pollute. But a leak or spill of manure from a concentration of thousands hogs clearly poses a greater threat than that from a few hundred animals.

And the differences are more than just quantitative. The massive scale of ILOs not only multiplies existing problems, it introduces brand new ones. In other words, when you are talking about hog production, size matters.

For one thing, the environmental effects of a mega-barn are qualitatively different from those of a conventional family farm. Industrial-style livestock production involves heavy use of chemical and pharmaceutical inputs. Antibiotics and hormones are added to feed as growth promotants, and in large concentrations of highly stressed animals, drugs and disinfectants are used intensively to keep disease at bay. The manure from such operations is like a toxic cocktail where micro-organisms like E. coli can mix with antibiotics, endocrine disruptors, and poisonous chemicals like formaldehyde. In that potent and nitrogen-rich medium, pathogens are able to develop mutant and resistant strains, multiply, and move into ground or surface water

"I don't think people realize how serious the environmental thing is," says Dale Fankhanel, an NFU member who raises hogs and beef cattle in the Camrose area of Alberta. A veteran of the two-year fight against the Taiwan Corporation's 150,000-hog per year mega-barn in Flagstaff County,

Fankhanel draws attention to US research linking ILOs, groundwater, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Given the dangers to human health, he says the evidence "really calls into question the sustainability of this kind of livestock production."

The people of Guymon, Oklahoma are certainly asking those questions, though it's a little late in the game for them now. In the early 1990s, Seabord Corporation came to town, assisted by $60 million from public coffers. Seabord "Farms", is the third largest pork powerhouse in the US, with 185,000 sows producing more thousands of piglets and millions of gallons of manure every year. In the arid Oklahoma panhandle, that kind of mass production means stifling air pollution, contaminated wells, depletion of a fragile aquifer, and a major problem disposing of dead pigs.

These big hog factories are also a nightmare for anyone who cares -- as most farmers do -- about the animals' well-being. The sows are isolated and immobilized in farrowing crates only inches larger than their bodies, on slatted floors with no bedding. Their piglets are weaned at one week of age, sometimes less, then raised in confinement indoors for the rest of their short lives. With no way to do the rooting and wallowing that is part of their nature, they chew obsessively on whatever is handy - wood, bars, or each other's tails. Sanitary precautions are not the only reason why most megabarns refuse entry to the public or the media.

In economic and social terms, too, ILOs are altogether different from family farms. Megabarns change the character of a rural community and the options open to its population. Independent farmers are replaced by hired workers in low-paid jobs with sub-standard working conditions. Commitment is low and turnover high. Local businesses suffer as the farm families who were their neighbours and customers aresqueezed out. The local feed store owner watches the giant feed company trucks roar past on their way to the mega-barn. Restaurants have a fly problem they never had before, and too often the smell that greets their customers overwhelms the aroma of food cooking. Tourists no longer linger; they wrinkle their noses, climb back in their cars, roll up their windows and drive back out to the highway.

The municipality, which may first have welcomed the new operation, is soon feeling the pinch as well. Property values have dropped with the decline in the residents' quality of life. Nobody wants to buy, and too many are thinking of selling. The complaints and the requests for reassessment keep piling up. The heavy truck traffic is taking its toll on the roads, but where are the taxes to pay for the increased maintenance? As for the sustainability and safety of the municipal water supply, there's a lot of finger-crossing and knocking on wood going on.

"The people promoting ILOs say it's all about bringing jobs and investment to rural communities, expanding the tax base," says Fred Tait. "But investors aren't in it for what they can give; they're it for what they can take. If they were that concerned about local employment, they'd demand that the mega-barn workers come under the Employment Standards Act. If they cared about the municipality, they'd be reimbursing the real costs of maintaining the roads. If their purpose was charity, they'd be directing it some other way."

Tait's analysis is backed by research in the US which compares the economic impacts of ILOs and family farms on local communities. One study showed that independent producers employ three times as many people as mega-barns for the same number of hogs. And whereas smaller producers do four fifths of their spending within 20 miles of their farms, for large operations it is less than 50%

It's a similar story with the benefits that were supposed to accrue to grain growers. "They promised a big demand and premium prices for Manitoba feed grain with this hog industry expansion," says Tait. "But now the grain is coming in from the US. The ILOs say they can't be competitive without the cheap American feed, so they're using the American taxpayer to subsidize their costs. All the talk about benefits - it's all smoke and mirrors."

Does anyone benefit, then? Yes indeed. The company executives who engineer the vertical integration, manage the mergers, lobby for tax breaks and against labour or environmental legislation. A few specialized construction and engineering firms that build the barns and the lagoons and sell the equipment. The corporate lawyers who twist the law, interpret the regulations, arrange the deals. The shareholders who play the stock market themselves or leave the dirty work to their mutual fund managers. Then there are always the politicians and bureaucrats who massage the legislation, turn a blind eye to infractions, and in return look forward to big campaign contributions or cushy job offers when they want a career change.

What about the consumer? Might not the dubious "efficiency" of mega-barn agriculture at least provide some sort of price advantage at the check-out counter? Well, if you've seen any sign of that happening, let us know. To the best of our knowledge, consumers continue to pay the same prices for bacon or pork chops, and many now have added concerns about food safety and animal welfare under an ILO regime.

In fact, the public image of farmers has been declining dramatically as "factory farms" become more widespread. Consumer sympathy used to be quite firmly on the side of farmers; now people are not so sure. It doesn't help when establishment farm organizations fall all over each other scrambling to defend the industrial model. Instead of lamenting urban ignorance and looking to PR consultants to improve their communication techniques, those groups might do better to question the basic contradictions in the message they are trying to communicate.