Hog Factories in Pa

[Steelfan]

No problem Jerry, I'm one of the few people, who can see both sides of this thing. I understand that when a farmer wants to pass his farm to his children, that most times that money is a big problem. Heck, I've been to public auctions where farms are sold to realtors for such a price that a normal man, who wants to farm it can't come close. Development housing is also a problem with concentrated waste. The other side of it is about Pig Factories, that the only ones getting rich are the companies, as stated here before. The family farmer is soon going to be a thing of the past. And that is very, very sad. I know there are some farmers who can do this safely, but I also think that some can't. And I read that a lot of this pork is shipped overseas. Maybe the price of feeding another country's people is worth destroying your own.

 

[RoyJackson]

"decided to put a Pig Factory about 2 miles from my home. Well when people got wind of this"

Boy, the only thing really nasty about Hog Farms is the <font color=red>stink!!!</font color=red>
We've got one in Shrewsbury...in a summer day, you can smell it for miles.

So, the downside of the Hog Farms is smell. Noise too, I guess. This will not enhance one's property values.

 

[tgello]

steel, sounds like a no win situation. i here where your coming from. people in communitys where there are farms that could fall into the hands of large corp. should try to band together and get the state or govt. to buy the development rights on the land or the people could buy the land as a group. i know it is hard to compete with these corps. but if people just turn thier backs on it ,it will be too late....tgello

 

[Steelfan]

Tgello, You're right about the no win situation thing. The problem isn't the people banding together, its government is not listening. When the first guy tried to put the farm in, the township government only tried to find ways to keep the meetings shortier. They didn't care about what the people had to say. Now the Senate of Pa isn't listening either. There are some very big companies behind that. Hatfield, Wenger, and Wampler/Longacre, all are very close to Harrisburg. And money talks. We all know that.

 

[looch]

Mother earth doesn't respond too well to too much of any one thing. I think we'd all be better off if everyone could raise or grow the food they needed to support their families, or at least enough to trade for other goods or services available locally. Wouldn't that be nice? Of course that's not possible in today's world.

There's litigation going on right now over a hog operation that wants to set up shop about a mile from our place (6000 head). They are well aware of the road blocks that lie before them, so they go about it real sneaky. Land is purchased in small amounts over a period of time. Really, the only reason the land is required is to spread the manure. The actual barns probably wouldn't take up much more than 5 - 10 acres. This, to me, is not a farm. But the challenge is "define farm." When people "punch in" to start work? Or the parking area for your employees has yellow lines indicating the parking spaces?

I remember reading about a similar situation out west, am I right Kevin (Knight9)?

A close friend of ours runs a small farm part time. He has one boar, four sows, and is currently growing his herd of sheep - he's up to twenty. We buy pork and lamb from him. It is slightly more expensive, but you don't eat as much. When I first saw one of his pork chops, I couldn't believe it. It was very firm - not floppy and wet like those pathetic things you get at the grocery store. I'm not sure if this procedure is prevalent throughout the pork industry, but here they start feeding the pigs excessive amounts of salt about four weeks before slaughter. The last week, they give them all the water they want - brings the weight up. Poor animals. I'm convinced that an animal that has had a happy, comfortable life actually tastes better.

Enough rambling.

Lots of people want pork. Lots of people want beef. Lots of people don't run farms. Interesting predicament man has made for himself.

 

[Steelfan]

Very well put. We all want the local farmer to make money, and do well. That's the point here, but if you do some reading, you find out that the local farmer is getting less, and less. When this operations don't work out, the company is owed money by the farmer, and the company takes the farm.

 

[dmccarty]

Steelfan,

These Industrial Farms, which is what they are for people who have not
seen them, should be banned. Or at least more intensely regulated.
Supposedly a pig produces four times the waste of a human. So when
the company builds a few pig houses and puts in 1,000 to 10,000 hogs
its like someone just built a 4,000 to 40,000 person development
nearby. How many farmers and people living in the country would
like 40,000 people to move in down the road?

Obviously pigs don't go to school nor crowd the roads. But they
do piss and poop. And that is the huge problem. If a developer
tried to build a project with 4,000 people they would have to
either hook into the sewer system or build a waste processing
facility. And you know what. The Industrial Farm does build
a sewege facility.

Its called a LAGOON. Yep a lagoon. A pond that is full of the
piss and poop that is flushed out of the hog house many times
a day. What happens to the piss and poop once its in the
LAGOON. Its sprayed on the fields. Yep they take the liquid
and spray it on fields. That is "waste treatment" defined by
the hog industry.

The people who think this is acceptable should go the local
permitting authorities and try to get permission to have an
open cess pool for their house. Go ahead. Try it.

Yet these Industrial Farms can have a cess pool that holds
the accumlated waste of the 40,000 people.

How would ANYONE like to live near one of these operations?
My father in law has been living on his land for a decade or so.
And Industrial Pig Farm came in a mile or so away. You want
a pleasent smell? Wait until you are downwind when they
are spraying the fields. Its like getting hit in the face. Its
really wonderful to go outside on Christmas day and have
that smell.

Water quality. The farms get fined frequently in NC for spraying
when the ground is saturated either by rain or to much pig waste.
Given that the number of regulators is kept low by the paid
off political hacks of the pig business you know the pollution is
far worse than is caught. Most of the pig farms in NC or in the
eastern part of the state. In some county the number of pigs
far outnumber people. There is alot of money keeping those
hog houses full.

So what happens when you have a storm. A storm that dumps
lots of water. Gee, would it flood out the LAGOON? Nah, that
would not happen. What happens when you have a big old
hurricane? Would EASTERN NC, the same part of the state
whose coast is known as the GraveYard of the Atlantic get
hit by bad storms? Hmmmm. So the rain happens and the
millions of gallons of pig poop goes down stream....

There was a LAGOON failure a few years ago. It was not
a rain event, the dam just failed. Millions of gallons in our
local rivers. Wonderful. The industry mouth piece got on
TV and blamed the failure on environmentalists. She said
they blew up the dam.

Look at the money. What happens with many of these
farms is that the "farmer" is some local guy. He owns the
land. He contracts to The Company to buy his hogs. He
takes out the loans to build the pig houses and run the farm.
But he has only one company to buy his product. Can you
see the shaft about to happen. He gets a good price for
a time but eventually they lower what they will pay after
the first contract or two. Since there are so few buyers
he is kinda stuck with a LAGOON full of pig piss and poop
as well as a mortgage.

The power is with the big companies who buy the pigs.
Look at the wholesale prices of pigs and looked at the
retail prices. The wholesale prices are pretty low,
supposedly because of oversupply. But do you see that
price in your package of pork chops? I don't think so.

Care to guess where the difference is being pocketed.

I have heard that similar things happened to chicken
producers in Floriday years ago. With the War On
Tobacco the same thing is now happening to the small
'baccy farmers. Tobacco is the only legal product where
a farmer could grow a few acres and actually make a
decent income. That is gone. The auction houses area
all but gone. Many of the remaining farmers are getting
into contracts with the big tobacco companies. Care to
guess their fate in a few years?

With the low price on pork as well as the waste disposal
problem many pig farms are going bankrupt. Guess who is
footing the bill? Can you say The Tax Payer....

The other problem that is starting to happen is the workers
at these farms are starting to have lung problems. Imagine
that.

Yeah, these things are really a family farm..... You are very
correct in being concerned by these Industrial Farms.

Later...
Dan McCarty

 

[Steelfan]

Dan, Everything you say here is very true. I really like the way you put the "open cesspool" idea out there. Many people are to hard headed to see these things. Many say it doesn't affect me. Well guess what when your water supply is destroyed by this type of operation, remember how it doesn't affect you. I just can't see the Senate of Pa voting to make it easier for this type of thing to go on, when as stated before a couple of weeks ago, we had a major spill in Pa of 770,000 into a creek. And the figure is I'm sure low. I've seen pictures, and news accounts of these things, and it the aftermath is nothing more then horrible. I call it Natural Toxic Waste. Kent

 

[tgello]

just heard a tid bit on the radio yesterday about jobs not to get into . they said the #one job not to make it inthese times is FARMING. is that sad or what? that sends out a good message to todays youth. the jobs of the future were computer based. some other bad ones were secreterial. ...tgello

 

[TerryinMD]

Any large animal operation is going to create a stinking mess. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif Of course, if you want cheap food there is a price to pay if you do not grow or raise it yourself. You can always tell when a farm uses pig manure from the lagoons. Peeee-yewwww!!!!

In most cases, a large corporation is behind the creation of the "animal" factories. A neighbor of ours was promised earth, moon, and stars to start a pig factory. The had a "contract" in hand. Got the financing to build the building and support systems. Had it built and began production. Within a year of startup, the large corporation cancelled it's contract which left the farmer with a $2M loan obligation. The went from being medium sized farm with little debt to one is deeply in debt. So, who is the bad guy in this case.... I just read in the local papers that West Virginia is refusing chicken manure from other states to prevent a fowl-based flu from attacking its chicken population.

So what is the answer.... I do not know. Do we need to get back to small farming and local food processing. Or is the large corporation the answer. Both have their benefits. Both have their problems.

I wish I knew the answer.... /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Terry