Opponents of Manitoba’s hog industry want the NDP government to maintain a ban on new hog barns across the entire province.
“We’re terrified they (hog barns) are going to spread to western Manitoba,” said Lindy Clubb, spokesperson for Wolf Creek Conservation and the Mixed Woods Forest Society.
Clubb and representatives of three other environmental groups held a news conference March 5 at the Forks Market in downtown Winnipeg to slam the Manitoba government’s decision to allow hog barn expansion in the western half of the province.
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Clubb, who lives in Winnipeg but spends summers in Sandy Lake south of Riding Mountain National Park, said the geographic ban doesn’t solve the underlying issue.
“Pollution practices don’t stop simply by changing locations,” she said.
On March 3, Manitoba conservation minister Stan Struthers extended a moratorium on hog barn expansion in three regions of the province – the southeast, the Interlake and the Red River Valley. The government also announced stricter regulations for hog operations, but new barns are now permitted in the rest of the province.
In November 2006, in response to public outrage over algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg, the NDP government put a pause on hog barn expansions across the province.
It asked Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission to assess the sustainability of the hog industry in Manitoba. In February, after a year of public consultation, the CEC submitted its report.
The document has 48 recommendations for the hog industry, including a ban on winter spreading of manure and moving up a deadline for operators to meet phosphorus thresholds to 2013 from 2020.
But, according to the environmental activists, the report is a disappointment.
“Manitoba’s Clean Environment Commission failed to do its job,” said Glen Koroluk of Beyond Factory Farming, an environmental group that supports sustainable livestock production. “We got a report that’s very weak.”
Joining Clubb and Koroluk at the news conference were Fred Tait of Hogwatch Manitoba and Alan Baron of Citizens for the Responsible Application of Phosphorus.
In addition to their call for a province-wide ban, the groups said the hog industry report was tainted and they want Manitoba’s auditor general to investigate the commission’s operations.
Koroluk said the CEC relied too heavily on professors at the University of Manitoba, who are dependent on research dollars from the pork industry.
One of those professors, Don Flaten, has a different take on the work of the commission.
“In my opinion, it’s a very objective and well balanced report,” said Flaten, a food science professor at the U of M.
He disagreed with a claim in the environmental groups’ joint release, stating the Manitoba hog industry is responsible for 8.5 percent of the phosphorus flowing into Lake Winnipeg.
He said his estimates point to a figure of 1.5 percent.
Flaten added there is a tendency to play the blame game with these kinds of issues. He said all citizens of Manitoba, whether they live in a condo in downtown Winnipeg or on a farm near Melita, blame others for environmental woes in the province.
Instead of pointing fingers at cottagers on Lake Winnipeg, and of course, pork producers, he said people should take a long look in the mirror.
“Instead of making somebody else’s share (of the problem) look bigger, what we really should be focused on is how to make our share smaller.”
