Manitoba agriculture minister Rosann Wowchuk will soon start meeting with farmers and other groups to talk about 40 livestock expansion recommendations.
A panel studying the issue recommended that the provincial government spend more money monitoring intensive livestock operations, enforcing regulations, and researching the environmental impacts of barns.
It also recommended a new way to approve new barn locations.
Municipalities would first examine whether the proposal met local land use bylaws. If so, the provincial government would assess its environmental impact.
The province’s main farm lobby group, Keystone Agricultural Producers, plans to work on a unified response to the report before meeting with Wowchuk.
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KAP includes most of the province’s major livestock organizations.
The Manitoba Pork Council has said it endorses the overall direction of the new recommendations, but is still consulting with its members.
The National Farmers Union said the recommendations should have included a call for a moratorium on expansion, given the report’s environmental emphasis.
“Building first and conducting studies later seems unwise and dangerous,” said Swan River, Man., farmer Ken Sigurdson in an NFU release.
“If we lack information and knowledge, let’s cease building these barns until the questions are answered.”
Fred Tait of Rossendale, Man., took issue with the panel’s recommendation that small farmers explore niches for producing pork in alternative sow housing systems.
“Smaller, independent hog producers cannot co-exist with large, vertically integrated packer monopolies,” Tait said in the NFU
release.
He also criticized Wowchuk for turning down a recommendation that intensive operations post performance bonds to cover the costs of environmental cleanups.
