Manure management | Manitoba Pork Council official protests provincial government’s requirements for anaerobic digesters in new barns
Manitoba’s hog industry is at a standstill because the province wants new pig barns to have “zero impact” on the environment, says Manitoba Pork Council chair Karl Kynoch.
Kynoch, who spoke at a Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon in mid-September, said the provincial government is unwilling to modify its manure management regulations.
Consequently, producers and companies are unwilling to invest in new barns.
“I was told they wanted zero impact. If we put up a hog barn, they wanted zero impact to the environment,” Kynoch said following his speech.
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“We’re very frustrated. We’ve come up with (several) proposals. They’ve set the bar for those proposals. But once we get there, then they move the bar or find some reason not to do it.”
Manitoba Pork has asked the province over the last 24 months to amend its regulations for building new hog barns and expanding existing barns. The regulations require barns to have an anaerobic digester to treat manure.
The province says it established the rules to protect the water quality of Lake Winnipeg.
Manitoba hog producers have said the regulations are too costly because an anaerobic digester for a small pig barn may cost $1 million.
Manitoba Pork proposed a cheaper option, building additional earthen storage structures, but Kynoch said the province rejected that proposal and rebuffed an idea to inject pig manure into the soil.
Kynoch said the province wants to build a hog barn as a pilot project to study how to raise pigs with minimal to zero impact on water quality. He said that’s pointless because the research could take five years and the industry can’t wait that long.
Manitoba farmers need to expand hog production because the Maple Leaf Foods pork processing plant in Brandon needs more pigs.
Morgan Curran-Blaney, manager of the Brandon plant, said in July it needs 20,000 additional hogs per week.
A spokesperson for Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship said the existing regulations aren’t set in stone.
“Discussions on this issue are ongoing. Ensuring increased and sustainable supply is an important government priority, and the province is committed to working with Manitoba Pork on a path that will ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable solution.”
Mel Hofer, a member of Deerboine Colony Farms near Alexander, Man., said the province’s nutrient management regulations are senseless. There is one set of rules for synthetic fertilizer and another for pig manure.
“I could buy as much (synthetic) fertilizer as I want and I can apply as much fertilizer as I want, but when it comes to spreading organic (pig) manure … I can’t spread it,” he said.
The regulations are blocking in-vestment in new barns, he added.
Kynoch said the restrictive rules are absurd because only .5 percent of the phosphorus entering Lake Winnipeg comes from hog barns.
The provincial conservation spokesperson didn’t comment on those estimates, but said agriculture’s contribution is much higher.
“Generally, we know that about one-third of the nutrient load that enters waterways and Lake Winnipeg comes from agricultural activities.”
- Manitoba was the largest pig producing and pig exporting province last year, with 29.4 percent of national production.
- Approximately 270 pig producers and production companies are registered in Manitoba this year. They produce pigs at 580 sites of one to four barns.
- The number of Manitoba sites producing pigs has declined by 33 percent over the last seven years.
- Total production hasn’t dropped significantly in Manitoba because the number of pigs per farm has increased from 2,500 in 2006 to much more than 4,000 last year.
- The province produced 4.684 million slaughter hogs last year, down from 5.349 million in 2007.
- The country slaughtered 4.3 million Manitoba hogs last year.
- There are 315,400 sows on farms this year, down from 369,300 in 2007.
- The Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon has a capacity of 4.5 million hogs a year.
- The Hylife plant in Neepawa has a capacity of 1.4 million hogs.
- The two plants operated at 85 percent of capacity last year. Comparable American plants operate at 97 percent capacity.
- Hog slaughter peaked at 5.57 million in 2012 but dropped to 5.43 million last year.
