SASKATOON – As Saskatchewan farmers and policy makers try to deal with the issues raised by large corporate hog farms, an American economist has issued a warning.
Restricting corporate ownership and passing tough environmental laws, as some are suggesting, might do to Saskatchewan’s hog industry what it has done in states like Iowa and Minnesota.
“Basically what they’ve done is they’ve driven the hog industry away,” said Rich Pottorff, chief economist of Doane Agricultural Services of St. Louis, Mo. “They have passed laws against corporate ownership of hog operations and have substantially toughened environmental laws for hog units.”
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As a result, almost all expansion in hog production in the U.S. is taking place outside the corn belt, in places like North Carolina, Utah and Oklahoma, he told an agricultural outlook conference held here last week.
Corporate versus family farming in the hog industry is becoming a high profile issue in Saskatchewan. Several locally owned corporations have gone into hog production in the last year or two, and they’ll soon be joined by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
At a recent convention of the National Farmers Union, members urged premier Roy Romanow to take steps to protect the family farm and the environment. Romanow said he shared their concerns but added the province doesn’t want to scare away potential investors.
Pottorff said in an interview any political jurisdiction should be careful about putting onerous restrictions on corporate farms.
“If the economics are there the hogs are going to be produced somewhere, so it’s a question of do you want that kind of industry in Saskatchewan, or do you want it in Alberta or somewhere else,” he said.
Those who oppose corporate farms on the grounds that they will provide unfair competition and drive family farms out of business won’t really accomplish anything by simply driving those corporate farms further away.
“They’re not eliminating that competition, they’re just saying ‘go do it somewhere else’, ” he said.
And he warned once the decision is made and the investors have gone elsewhere, the production that is lost will be hard to regain.
Ken Rosaasen, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan who was attending the same conference, said while restrictive regulations will often drive a business venture to locate elsewhere, Saskatchewan has a “fairly positive environment” for corporate hog operations.
And while the province’s political culture has traditionally supported the family farm, if the projects are locally driven and set up on a co-operative model, they could gain widespread support.
There is another factor at work, he said: “A lot of communities are pretty desperate for any kind of investment and jobs and business, so when you’re in a situation like that, you’re probably a lot more amenable.”
