While hog industry proponents welcomed the results of a three-year study at La Broquerie, Man., their opponents were skeptical.
Sheldon Stott, a nutrient resource manager for Hytek, said hog producers have long known the value of hog manure as a source of fertilizer on forage crops and the benefits of integrating it with cattle production.
“We’ve known that for years. It’s just nice having some research to back that up,” he said. “I think it affirms what we always believed.”
Stott added the study proves that the potential of phosphorus leaching from hog manure applied to pastures is not as great as many had feared.
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He said the company left the researchers alone to do their work, other than donating the land and the manure, paying for manure application and moving the cattle around on the site when requested.
“We had no direct influence on the researchers nor the results obtained,” Stott said, adding his first glimpse of the study’s findings came during the official presentation by the University of Manitoba researchers in Friedensfeld, Man., on March 7.
Glen Koroluk, who serves as a community organizer for Beyond Factory Farming, said that although he was not familiar with the results of the La Broquerie study and was not a scientist, he regarded with suspicion any study with close links to the hog industry.
“If the report got refereed in a professional journal, then I’d read it,” he said.
“This is just another industry-sponsored piece that’s trying to disprove other peer-reviewed research that’s coming from the United States.”
Koroluk said that in his opinion, applying hog slurry to pastures and then letting cattle graze on them was “not a good idea.”
Eva Pip, a professor of toxicology and water quality at the University of Winnipeg and outspoken critic of intensive hog farming, said she was not surprised the study found that the increased growth in the pasture’s root mat was retaining phosphorus from hog manure.
She said grasses are effective at absorbing phosphorus, but problems result when spring flooding dissolves the nutrient and carries it into adjacent bodies of water.
Although provincial regulations state that hog manure must not be applied near surface water sources, Pip said lack of enforcement allows unscrupulous operators to violate the law without penalty.
“I live in hog country. My neighbor is a hog producer. I see on a daily basis the kinds of things that happen,” she said. “Who checks to see if the setbacks are respected? Absolutely nobody.”
