Bill Turnock had no luck a year ago persuading the provincial Tories to study how much hog production Manitoba can handle.
The chair of the Manitoba Environmental Council was ignored by then environment minister Jim McCrae, who represented a government keen on getting Maple Leaf to build a hog processing plant in Brandon.
But the Tory government was ousted in September, replaced by the New Democrats. With the change, Turnock hopes the province might consider what level of hog production is sustainable in Manitoba.
“The more hogs that are produced, the more vigilant we have to be.”
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When Turnock made his views public last year, Maple Leaf had not yet started construction of its Brandon plant.
Turnock’s council now advises the department of conservation, formed this fall through a merger of the environment and natural resources departments, on matters related to the environment.
His comments this year come as J.M. Schneider Inc. ponders whether to expand its hog slaughter and processing plant in Winnipeg.
An expansion of the Schneider plant, combined with the future addition of a second shift at the Maple Leaf plant, could eventually push the demand for hogs in Manitoba to 10 million head, more than double what the province now produces.
Turnock wonders whether his advice and cautionary words about an expanded hog industry will be heeded by the NDP government.
He knows the promise of jobs and millions of dollars in economic spinoffs is hard for any government to resist, regardless of its political stripe.
Management plans required
At this point, the province appears comfortable with its regulations for the livestock industry. It draws much of its comfort from rules that place limits on when and how much manure can be spread by larger livestock operations.
“We feel there is probably sufficient room in the province to accommodate the growth in the industry,” said Dennis Brown, a regional director with Manitoba Conservation’s environmental operations.
Larger livestock operations must submit a management plan to the province before spreading manure. Soil testing gauges how much manure can be applied to a particular field.
The province uses animal waste units to decide which producers must submit a manure management plan.
Each unit is equivalent to the number of animals needed to produce 73 kilograms of nitrogen in a year.
New livestock ventures with more than 400 animal waste units have to file plans and refrain from spreading manure in the winter. Older operations do not have to comply with the ban on winter spreading until Nov. 10, 2003, unless they undertake an expansion or modification that pushes the number of waste units over 400.
Brown said the amount of land available for hog expansion may be limited by municipalities voting against new barns in their jurisdictions.
“That’s certainly their choice. But given that, there should still be sufficient land available for the spreading of manure in a very agronomic way to meet our regulations and the industry regulations.”
Bill Paton, a Brandon University professor of botany biology, shares Turnock’s view that the province needs to look at the growing hog industry and its social, economic and environmental implications.
He said livestock ventures already have become concentrated in some of the most vulnerable parts of the province’s agriculture region, including the Interlake and near Carberry, Man. And he questions the wisdom of having barns in the Red River Valley, a region prone to flooding.
While the manure management regulations monitor nitrogen accumulation in the soil, Paton said phosphates also need closer scrutiny. Leached into groundwater, they can deplete oxygen and cause algae blooms, he said.
Manitoba conservation minister Oscar Lathlin was not available for comment.
