Canadian pig farmers want to know the source of charges that their
industry is a polluter.
The Ottawa Citizen, a daily newspaper, reported on March 19 that
“industrial scale farms are causing air and water pollution and posing
a significant health hazard to people working in them.”
The Citizen story quotes unnamed documents from among 590 pages it
received from Agriculture Canada as part of an access-to-information
request. The story said the documents show federal officials believe
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that intensive livestock operations, such as hog barns, can and have
caused serious environmental and human problems.
The newspaper story does not reveal what documents were received from
the government, which ones are quoted, nor the scope of the
access-to-information request.
That leaves Manitoba Pork chair Marcel Hacault uncertain how to respond.
“It’s a little frustrating when it comes out this way,” said Hacault.
“What documents are these? What do they say? We don’t know.”
Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk was in the same position.
“As soon as we heard about this we called the federal government and
said, ‘get us these documents.’ What are they talking about,” she said.
“See if there’s scientific evidence to what’s being said in this or if
it’s just people’s opinions. We don’t know what it is.”
Hacault suspects some of the documents are the hog industry’s own
research that lays out areas about which the industry wants more
information.
Pig producers think more study is needed to ensure new hog barns don’t
have health or environmental problems.
Documents such as those shouldn’t be used to suggest the industry is a
danger, Hacault said. They merely demonstrate the industry is doing its
due diligence.
