The 2007
Successful Farming Pork Powerhouses list is out, and the
results are predictable: the 20 biggest swine operations in the nation yet
again added sows to their herds during the past year. In this case, those 20 "Powerhouses" increased their breeding herd by 5 percent, for a total of 3.155
million sows. Reports
Successful Farming: "The June USDA Hogs and Pigs Report said there are 6.12 million breeding
animals in the U.S., meaning these largest producers control almost half of the
nation's swine breeding herd." All this expansion occurred at a time when feed
costs could go up as much as 40 percent because of the ethanol boom. At first
blush, it's an example of agribusiness plowing ahead against the odds to feed
the world a better pork chop. But here's some advice: read the
Successful Farming Pork Powerhouses
story, and then, for a reality check, take a look at a recent
Environmental Health Perspectives paper on the economic
and human health impacts of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The
paper makes it clear this isn't about producing pork - it's about garnering
market power at all costs. The Big 20 are racing to see who can control the
most sows in the shortest period of time, and they don't care who or what gets
hurt in the process - independent farmers, the environment, rural communities and
consumers are all expendable in this game.
Factory farming's apologists argue that the concentration of production in
fewer and fewer hands is inevitable because it's the most efficient way to
raise hogs. But the dirty little secret of the hog industry is that
family-sized, independent farm operations are actually pretty efficient at what
they do. Economists and animal scientists concede that these smaller operations
do an excellent job of getting the most pork out of a pound of feed while
keeping pig mortality down. They also produce a good-tasting product.
But the Smithfields of the world don't make
as much money when they have to pay a fair market price for a handcrafted
product. They make much more when they own the hogs from piglet to processing.
That means they need to push the independents out by denying them access to an
open market, as LSP documented in our 1999 report,
Killing Competition with Captive Supplies. It also means
that to make pork production worth their while, they need to pack as many
animals on as little land as possible, creating a situation where manure is no
longer a valuable fertilizer, but a waste disposal problem, and wealth is
exported out of a community faster than a load of hogs pulled by a Peterbilt.
The authors of the
Environmental
Heath Perspectives paper are researchers that hail from places
quite familiar with hog production: Iowa State University, University of Iowa,
University of North Carolina and Northern Illinois University. These
researchers have done an excellent job of summarizing the economic and health
research that's been done on the CAFO phenomenon over the years. As one would
suspect, the news is not good. Factory farming's boosters can claim they create
jobs all they want, but the research shows in the end CAFOs suck money out of
communities, lower property values and in general are an economic burden for
most everyone but the owners and investors.
And the health problems caused by these
operations is also well documented. Both CAFO workers and neigbors report
higher rates of respiratory illness, for example. The employee turnover in one
of these operations is quite high for a reason. Too bad the neighbors - often
lifelong residents of the area - don't always have the option of moving out.
You don't have to live next to a CAFO owned
by a member of the Pork Powerhouse Top 20 Club to be exposed to the negative
consequences of factory hog farming. The trickle down effect of the pork
industry's super stars is insidious. During the past month, I've spent a fair
bit of time talking to farmers and other rural residents in two separate
communities that are being inundated by factory pork.
One hog operation, which was just finished
in southern Minnesota's Mower County, is owned by Northfield, Minn.-based
Holden Farms. Holden is number 17
on the
Successful Farming list, up from 19 a year
ago. Holden doesn't have a good reputation in rural Minnesota and had to literally
sneak into this particular community. It's not hard to predict what will
result from this manure factory. Holden will probably move up the Pork
Powerhouse list in 2008, and it will do it on the backs of rural residents in
places like Mower County.
The other operation I've been researching is owned by a producer who is a
Holden Farms wannabe. He's far from being a Power Powerhouse, and the location
he's picked for his facility is in southwest Wisconsin's Vernon County - far from
a swine producing mecca. But he thinks if he raises tens of thousands of pigs
in one spot he will become "competitive" and get a chance to play with the big
boys in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and North Carolina.
Instead, years down the road he will find
himself with a bunch of alienated neighbors, a mountain of debt, and a bunch of
pigs no packer will buy, because the market will be controlled even further by
the Pork Powerhouse gang. This hog "farmer" won"t be the only loser: Earlier
this month, I visited the site where he wants to build this mini-Pork
Powerhouse: it"s on fractured karst geology ripe with sinkholes and it's
surrounded by family farms. Oh yeah, a primary school is a mile away as the
crow flies (the
Environmetal Health
Perspectives paper cites research showing kids in schools within
three miles of CAFOs had higher rates of
respiratory problems).
People like our friend in southwest
Wisconsin read the
Pork Powerhouse list each October and pine to be on it.
And we all pay the price of such porcine aspirations.
It doesn't have to be this way. The authors
of the
Environmental Health Perspectives paper make several
strong recommendations, including:
-
Make community health studies related to the effects of CAFOs a
priority. For too long factory farms have been given a pass by regulators
and health professionals who allow their owners to hide behind the shield
of, "We're a farm, not a factory."
-
Prioritize funding for reseaerching sustainable methods of
livestock production. There are better ways to raise hogs, and farmers right
here in Minnesota are proving it. But the overwhelming bulk of ag
research dollars are still poured into archaic factory systems that are
bad news economically and environmentally.
-
Local government control of where CAFOs can be located should be
supported and strengthened. Here in Minnesota, local townships have shown
they know how to balance economic, environmental and health considerations
when determining where CAFOs can be located. Unfortunately, in places like
Wisconsin and Iowa, local government control has been gutted, and the
results are predictable.
-
Permits for manure storage basins should require bonding for
performance and remidiation. Why should a cash-strapped rural community
pay for the damage caused by a factory farm's manure spill while its
owners cash in on Wall Street?
In case you're thinking this paper is just a "think piece" that isn't calling for immediate action, consider the final
recommendation:
"The current state of knowledge of community
impacts of CAFOs warrants support for the American Public Health Association
recommendation for a moratorium on all new CAFO construction."
That would make a nice lead sentence for
Successful Farming's 2008 Pork
Powerhouses article.
