SASKATOON – Florian Possberg has big plans for the Saskatchewan hog industry.
But the Humboldt hog producer will have to carefully wend his way through a field of environmental and social land mines.
“Even in areas that you think are ideal for development, you can end up having some real negative feedback,” said Possberg.
In the Rural Municipality of Wolverine, just south of Humboldt, Possberg is fighting a proposed bylaw amendment that would virtually ban any new livestock operations of a size he considers necessary to be efficient.
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Possberg is also involved with barns proposed for the Kelvington area and is working on proposals for operations near Ituna.
The Kelvington barns have drawn an angry reaction from a group of locals, and past proposals from others for hog barns in the Ituna area have been sunk by strong opposition.
Possberg’s proposals are part of an attempt to build a network of barns of the size and scale he considers necessary to compete with hog producers anywhere, including giant American factory-style farms.
Possberg’s plan would place the labor-intensive work with piglets in the Humboldt area, where he would eventually like to see 10 barns. The weanlings would be sent to areas like Ituna, where centres of four or five barns each could bring the pigs to market weight.
Possberg sees it as the only hope of keeping the Saskatchewan hog industry alive.
But others consider it the death knell for the province’s hog industry.
“Area hog farmers would not be able to compete with these mega corporate hog operations,” reads a brief written by a group of Kelvington residents and given to Saskatchewan agriculture minister Eric Upshall in objection to the Kelvington barns.
“Once the hog industry is vertically integrated, they will want to either do away with the hog marketing board or at the very least bypass it.”
Possberg said his expansion plans will not force anyone out of business. He said Saskatchewan must increase hog production if it wants to see more processing centred here.
Each side of the debate disputes the environmental consequences of large hog operations. Opponents say the massive manure production will damage local land and water, while proponents say rigorous environmental reviews new hog facilities face will ensure they are safe.
Despite the deep division between the two camps, Possberg is trying to proceed by involving those who will be neighbors of his proposed hog operations.
“It’s really true that if people can have a lot more information before the rumor mill has a chance to get going, there’s a lot less likelihood of problems,” said Possberg, who said he learned from setting up a barn in the Goodeve area.
There the reeve became a supporter and took Possberg to meet local residents and discuss the plans before any work began. Possberg said this way people didn’t get the impression that he was sneaking around.
Ituna farmer Marvin Golemba works with the Goodeve operation and is trying to bring in another series of Possberg barns near Ituna. He wants to ensure there is widespread support before the project begins.
Golemba said projects must benefit a large number of local people or area residents won’t be willing to put up with the smell and potential environmental risks a hog barn brings.
The Ituna proposal provides those benefits, he said, because it gives local farmers a market for feed grains and shores up the economy with jobs and spin-off benefits.
But whatever happens near Ituna, the opposition to mega-hog barns is unlikely to abate.
“Corporate intensive hog operations are not farms,” said the Kelvington group opposing Possberg. “They are factories …. They are not the response to declining family farm hog production, they are the cause of it.”
