Regulations on manure treatment costly, onerous
The Manitoba hog barn moratorium has begun breaking up, but nobody expects a flood of new barns any time soon.
Farmers will have to comply with expensive manure treatment regulations and will be able to apply manure only at extremely low rates. These restrictions will make expansion in many areas difficult or impossible.
However, the industry is celebrating the loosening of the hog barn ban as the beginning of a “rebalancing” in provincial production.
“There’s a need to rebuild this industry. We’re down 700,000 pigs at least,” Karl Kynoch, the outgoing Manitoba Pork Council chair, said at the organization’s April 15 annual meeting.
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“We need to balance this industry. We need to balance it back to the capacity of the plants.”
If the moratorium truly has been relaxed, then a demoralizing period for Manitoba hog farmers might be passing.
Hog production in Manitoba has declined since the first limited moratorium in 2007 and the province-wide moratorium of 2011.
The decline has created a severe problem for Manitoba’s processing plants.
The Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon is running far short of its capacity and has repeatedly warned that its second shift, employing hundreds of workers, might be shut down if Manitoba hog numbers continue to fall.
The new rules allowing new barns and barn expansion are laid out in a new booklet available to producers.
Farmers wanting to build new barns will have to construct two-cell lagoon systems that separate most of the solid manure from the waste water.
They will also have to remove most of the phosphorus from the spreadable manure.
Farmers will be required to spread the manure at phosphorus removal rates that are far below existing standards.
Kynoch said the regulations are onerous, but they will allow some farmers to build new barns, which will help rejuvenate the stalled industry.
“It’ll definitely lead to some.”
