There’s new help out there for rural councillors saddled with the daunting task of evaluating intensive livestock proposals.
And they’re going to need it, said one of the advocates.
“We attended some of the conditional use hearings on hog barns around here and found the process usually divides communities,” said Don Allan, head of the Brandon Economic Development Board.
The board is teaming up with the Union of Manitoba Municipalities to offer an intensive livestock symposium Feb. 17-18 in Brandon called New Horizons.
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“We want to open up discussion on intensive livestock because it appears that’s the direction agriculture is moving in,” said Allan.
Plans for the seminar were under way even before Maple Leaf made its announcement to locate its new $112 million cut and kill plant here, he said, adding there will also be sessions dealing with the impact of poultry, beef and bison processing.
Maple Leaf’s pork processing facility will likely mean more large-scale hog operations locating in the area and some environmentalists have said rural councillors aren’t prepared to handle that.
Allan said it is this kind of criticism the symposium hopes to address.
“We want to make sure they’re asking the right questions when they’re looking at whether something should go ahead or not.”
UMM executive director Jerome Mauws said intensive livestock is just the latest in a long list of new trends facing municipalities.
“Elected officials in small municipalities right up to the city of Winnipeg are not necessarily experts at everything,” Mauws said.
He said UMM is getting involved to make sure councillors have the right tools to make the tough decisions. In issues like this one, it is impossible to please both sides, he said.
“Municipalities get caught in the middle between proponents of the development and people living in the area or concerned people in other parts of the province coming in because they object to the operations.”
Allan said the biggest problem is that councils have to work within a planning framework that is out of date, he said.
“Agriculture use does not take into account intensive livestock and there needs to be another designation on that.”
One seminar will look at ways individual councils can set up a new classification for land suited to mega-livestock operations, he said.
Seminars will cover the impact of intensive livestock operations on soil and ground water, manure management and disposal, new provincial waste guidelines, urban migration and property tax implications.
A senior Maple Leaf official has also been invited, Allan said, and there will be testimonials from Manitoba municipalities that have gone through the process.
