David Rolfe’s 115-sow farrow-to-finish hog barn at Elgin, Man., is far from what most farmers would describe as an intensive livestock operation. But a recent study of how the Manitoba government should handle livestock expansion will likely have its greatest impact on family farms like his.
Rolfe’s youngest son James, 25, is moving back to the farm with his family. To make the move more profitable, James plans to start a cow-calf operation.
Someday, when David retires, James will run the whole farm.
The elder Rolfe is hopeful the transfer plan will work. They already own some pasture, and will convert some cropland to hay. They’ll need to buy livestock, some equipment, and winter shelter.
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But what the Rolfes didn’t count on was having to build storage for manure.
The Manitoba government is poised to change its definition of an intensive livestock operation to one that produces 300 animal units of manure per year.
Intensive livestock operations can’t spread manure on fields in the winter, so they need a lagoon big enough to hold up to half their annual production of manure.
New category
The Rolfes’ hog farm produces less than half of 300 animal units of manure, but David thinks the planned cattle operation will push the farm into the proposed intensive livestock category.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Rolfe said. “There’s nothing I would like more than not to have to spread manure in the winter time.”
But building a lagoon for his small operation wouldn’t be economically feasible.
“If this comes through, it’s another nail in the coffin of family farms.”
Storage can cost between $30,000 and $100,000 depending on the site, he said.
“It’s almost forcing us to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” Rolfe said at the Keystone Agricultural Producers’ annual meeting.
“What choice do I have?”
Rolfe was involved in a committee that developed the 1998 regulations that defined intensive operations as producing more than 400 animal units of manure per year from any one species. At that time, farmers fought hard to keep the definition from including all species of livestock.
Mixed farms usually include cattle, and few cattle producers spread manure on their fields in winter, Rolfe said.
But the agricultural economist who chaired the panel that recommended the move to 300 animal units said it doesn’t make sense to ignore the combined impact of all the manure produced on a farm.
Ed Tyrchniewicz told Rolfe he sympathizes with his family’s conundrum.
But because of intense public pressure calling for stricter regulations on all sizes of operations, Tyrchniewicz suggested farmers view the move as a compromise.
It’s not just the big hog operations in Manitoba that can cause environmental problems, he said.
“There was an awful lot of concern about the smaller operations who were able to duck under regulations,” said Tyrchniewicz, referring to what the panel heard at meetings last summer. Besides, he added, as long ago as 1979, a provincial study recommended a threshold of 300 animal units.
