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Top Ten
Reasons
for rural communities to be concerned
about large-scale, corporate hog operations
John Ikerd
Agricultural Economist
University of Missouri, Columbia
I was recently asked by a rural
advocacy group in Missouri to "list some logical reasons why county
commissioners and other rural community leaders should be concerned about
effects of livestock factories?" I considered it to be a reasonable
request and thus developed a list of reasons why I think rural residents
should question whether or not they want large-scale, corporate hog farms
to locate in their communities.
As I indicate in my response to the
request, there is no scientific consensus on this issue. Thus, there is no
set of scientific "facts" to either "prove or
disprove" the validity of these concerns. There is research to
support many of the concerns on my list, even though they cannot be
proven. Published proceedings from "An Interdisciplinary Scientific
Workshop: Understanding the Impacts of Large-scale Swine Production,"
edited by Kendall Thu, University of Iowa, is a good starting point in
reviewing supporting literature. However, most of the concerns on the list
are based primarily on logical reasoning and common sense. Some may
dismiss these "logical" concerns as illogical, uninformed, or
inconsequential. But, such assessments simply represent different
"beliefs," not proven facts or some unique knowledge of reality.
The people of rural communities have a right and responsibility to weigh
the evidence and logic on both sides of this issue and to make their own
decisions.
Admittedly, there are reasonable
arguments in favor of locating large-scale corporate hog operations in
specific rural communities. They include: (a) we need the jobs, (b) we
need the tax base, (c) we don’t want to lose our agricultural base, (d)
other communities will do it if we don’t, (e) we can’t stand in the
way of progress, (f) consumers want uniform quality that only big
operations can supply, (g) big operations can better afford modern
pollution prevention technologies, and (h) the opposition is just another
case of "not in my backyard," selfish thinking. There are
logical responses to each of these arguments. However, rather than argue
these points, I have chosen to provide a logical list of reasons why rural
communities might be concerned about the location of large-scale corporate
hog operations in their areas.
A "top ten list" wasn’t
chosen just to be cute or catchy. Ten is enough to get the point across,
but not so many as to overdo discussion of the issue. Also, I wanted to
start at the bottom of my list and work my way to the top.
Concern #10. Hogs stink.
Odor is at the top of the list for many
opponents of large-scale hog farms. The most vocal opponents tend to be
those affected most directly – those who wake up to the smell of hog
manure most every morning. To a hog producer, hog manure may "smell
like money," but to the neighbors, it just "smells like hog
manure." There are legitimate human health concerns associated with
air quality surrounding large hog operations. Thus, the odor problem goes
beyond the very real nuisance of living with stench in the air. Odors
associated with giant hog farms affect the lives of people for "miles
around," not just those on adjoining farms. No one likes living in a
community that smells like a cesspool. Few would be willing to stay in, or
move into, such a community for any reason other than employment. Odor
ranks only 10 on my list because something could possibly be done to
mitigate its impacts, such as using odor reducing technologies,
compensating those most affected, and restricting location to minimize
impacts of the greater community.
Concern #9. The work is not good for
people.
A large confinement hog facility is not
a pleasant place to work. Known health risks are associated with
continuously breathing the air that arises from manure pits in confinement
hog facilities. Health problems cost money in lost wages and health care
costs. But more important, an unhealthy workplace can destroy peoples’
lives. History has proven that people will choose to work in dangerous
work environments when they are desperate for jobs. Health risks can be
life threatening, so I rank worker safety above odor problems. But as in
the case of odor, health problems can be mitigated by protecting workers
from the noxious fumes, by limiting exposure, and by keeping people with
other health problems out of confinement facilities.
Concern #8. Piling up too
much "stuff" in one-place causes problems.
If you spread out the hogs and let hog
manure lay where it falls in a pasture, it doesn’t bother anyone very
much. But if you start collecting it, flushing it, spreading and spraying
it around – all normal practices in confinement hog operations – it
becomes air pollution. Water pollution also is a symptom of the same basic
problem -- too much manure in one place. The difference between the lagoon
spills in Missouri and North Carolina and the normal runoff from a hog
pasture is a simple matter of concentration. When you put a lot of hogs in
the same place, you have to collect and store the waste. If it gets into
the ground water or gets flushed into streams, it kills fish, clogs
streams and lakes with algae, feeds water born disease organism, and
wreaks havoc in the environment.
In addition, manure on diversified hog
farms normally is spread back onto cropland where the feed grain was
grown. Most of the nutrients used to grow the crops are returned to the
soil. But, when feed grains from specialized crop farms are shipped to
distant hog-factories, the nation’s future productive capacity is being
stacked up and flushed out into places where crops can’t grow. We can
treat the symptoms – air pollution and water pollution – but the basic
problem of piling up too much stuff is inherent within the system of
large-scale, concentrated production.
Concern #7. Consumers have
little if anything to gain.
Large-scale, corporate hog production
is frequently justified to the general public as a more efficient, lower
cost, means of producing higher quality pork. The facts of the situation
simply do not support such a claim. The average consumer spends just over
10 percent, a dime out of each dollar, of their disposable income for
food. About 10 percent, a penny out of the dime, is spent for pork. The
costs of live hogs make up only about 35 percent of that penny. The rest
goes for processing, packaging, advertising, transportation, and other
marketing costs.
Farm record data have shown that costs
of large-scale hog operations are only slightly lower than costs of
"average" commercial hog producers. Even if production costs
were five percent less, about $2/cwt of live hog; the "maximum"
savings to consumers would be less than two cents per dollar spent for
pork at retail. At best, food costs would be two-tenths of one percent
less and consumers on average would spend only "two-one-hundredths of
one percent" less for food. Any savings would be lost in rounding
error in consumer food cost statistics. With a handful of large hog
producers and packers gaining control of the industry, it seems far more
likely that pork prices would go up than down as a consequence of further
industrialization.
The argument that factory pork would be
higher in quality doesn’t hold either. Pork would be more uniform
because it would all come from the same basic genetic stock, as is
currently the case with chickens. However, consumers have different tastes
and preferences – different perceptions of quality. Making all pork
"the same" would not necessarily please more consumers. Greater
profits for producers and processors, not lower costs or higher quality,
is the driving force behind the current trend toward industrial hog
production. The only ones who really need to shave another penny or two of
cost of production costs are those who are trying to export more pork into
highly competitive world markets. That doesn’t include many hog farmers
or port consumers. So, why should the general public support industrial
hog production?
Concern #6. Continuing regulatory
problems are inevitable.
Without regulations, big hog operations
will impose costs on their neighbors – air pollution, water pollution,
and others -- that are not part of the historic costs of producing hogs.
It will cost money for hog factories to deal with
"externalities" such as air and water pollution. No
"bottom-line" driven hog operation will incur those costs unless
they are forced to do so by government regulations – federal, state, or
local.
Family farmers are people with human
feelings and values, and most feel some sense of responsibility to their
communities and the environment. Family farmers at least have personal
incentives to be stewards of the environment and good neighbors,
regardless of how they choose to behave. Public corporations have no such
incentives. They are not people. Corporations have no heart or soul.
Stockholders often are so detached from their investments they don’t
know or care what stocks they own – just as long as they make money.
Local managers and workers may be good people who really care about the
community, but when it comes to keeping their job, they must put profits
and growth ahead of community. Professed corporate support of local
communities, by necessity, can be nothing more than another strategy for
profit and growth. Thus, government regulation and continual conflict are
an inherent fact of corporate life.
Concern #5. Hog factories destroy
public confidence in agriculture.
Over the decades, family farmers have
built up a vast treasure of public confidence and good will. Many people
in the cities either grew up on farms or have parents or other close
relatives who either are or were family farmers. The "farm
family" conjured up images of people who are hard working, moral,
honest, solid, dependable, trustworthy, caring, and responsible. These
images have been a valuable source of wealth for farmers – although not
widely recognized as such.
Farmers have been awarded special
privileges, exemptions, and variances under a whole host of public
policies -- from taxation to environmental regulations -- because they
were trusted to behave in the public interest. Support of "family
farms" has been an important part of the rhetoric of every farm bill
that has passed congress. Farmers have also enjoyed a special status
"as people," apart from any monetary benefits. They have been
respected and trusted. However, bad publicity surrounding large-scale,
corporate hog production is using up the farmer’s stock of public
confidence and good will at an alarming rate. Negative stories have
appeared on every major television network over the past few years. When
Ms. Magazine runs a feature article on the ills of corporate hog farming,
as they did in a recent issue, we can conclude that the story has just
about made the full circuit of public opinion shapers. Family farms will
be paying for this loss of public trust for decades, if not forever.
Concern #4. Future of the community
is turned over to outside interests.
Rural people need to take charge of
their own destinies if they expect to sustain a desirable quality of
community life for themselves, their children, and future generations of
rural Americans. Quality of life is about much more than just creating
more jobs and making more money. Quality of life is also about positive
moral and social values and being responsible caretakers of the community
as a place. Sure, people need jobs and need to make a decent living. But,
jobs and high wages didn’t save the cities from decline and decay and
jobs won’t save rural communities either. When an apparent solution to a
problem comes from someone else, from outside, you can just about bet that
the benefits will be going to someone else from outside as well.
Some rich and powerful outsiders have
their own problems, and they have their eyes on rural communities as
places to solve them. Sparse population, trusting people, and lack of jobs
in rural areas are seen as ideal opportunities. They are looking for
someplace to "dump stuff." An Industrial society creates a lot
of "trash," whether in the form of garbage, toxic chemicals, or
hog manure. Most "outsiders" promoting rural development schemes
have something they need to "dump." Jobs just aren’t enough
compensation for turning a community into a "dump." Rural people
need to take control of their own destiny and build the kinds of
communities in which their children and their children’s children will
choose to live and grow. The solutions to the problems of rural Americans
are in the hands, hearts, and minds of rural people themselves, not in
outside investment and corporate control.
Concern #3. The decision
making process can rip communities apart.
The process of decision making may be
more important than the decision itself. Anyone who has been a part of a
family has experienced this first hand. The memory of an act that
triggered a family feud has long since faded, but the feud goes on. Feuds
result from a loss of confidence and trust, regardless of the context
within which the loss takes place. The large-scale, corporate hog farm
issue is one of the most contentious issues to confront rural America in
recent history.
The social fabric of rural communities
has been ripped apart by controversy surrounding the introduction of
large-scale, corporate hog operations. There seems to be no middle ground.
Some people seem determined to bring in the big hog operations, by almost
any means, and others seem just as committed to keep them out, by almost
any means. Almost everyone eventually seems to feel obligated to take
sides. The larger question in such communities is not whether the hog
farms come in or stay out, but can the community ever heal the wound left
by the fight? A healthy, unified community can deal with almost any
problem, including a large-scale corporate hog farm on the outskirts of
town. A sick, bitterly divided community is incapable of much more than
survival, regardless of its other advantages and opportunities. The future
of rural America depends on communities of people being able to work
together for their common good. The divisiveness of the decision making
process, presumably, could be avoided. But, the consequences of failing to
do so are so destructive that it ranks near the top of my list.
Concern #2. Hog factories degrade
the productive capacities of rural people.
Factories "use up" people.
Assembly line work is "non-thinking" work. When you work on an
assembly line, you simply do what you are told as fast as you can for as
long as you can. I know. I have been there. Large-scale hog operations may
not be assembly lines, but the principle is the same. Big hog operators do
not want people who know anything about raising hogs. They want people who
can be trained to do what they are told to do without thinking. An
experienced hog farmer might start thinking, asking questions, and mess up
the process. Hog factories, like other factories, are looking for people
who are dependable, who know how to carry out orders, and will work hard
for a little money.
On balance, large-scale, industrial hog
operations destroy more jobs than they create. A driving force behind
industrialization is to substitute capital and technology for labor and
management – to make it possible for fewer people to produce more.
Large-scale hog operations concentrate the jobs created in one place and
call it economic development. The jobs lost elsewhere are ignored or
denied. The numbers of independent hog farmers displaced elsewhere will be
greater than the number of jobs created in new large scale hog operations.
Hog factories replace more independent hog farmers with fewer assembly
line workers.
Other kinds of factories have come to
rural America in the past. When these factories have found people in other
regions, or in other countries, who would work even harder for less, they
moved on. Corporately owned factories have no roots. They leave behind a
workforce that doesn’t know how to do anything other than what they are
told. Intelligent, thinking, capable, independent people are transformed
into detached, non-thinking people who may be psychologically incapable of
earning a living without depending on someone else to tell them what to
do. Our cities currently are plagued with such people -- people whose
capacities have been degraded by factories long since gone. It just
doesn’t seem to make sense to do the same thing to rural people. When we
replace independent, family hog farmers with hog factories we are
degrading the most valuable resource rural areas have to support future
development – rural people.
Concern #1. Tomorrow’s problems
are disguised as today’s solution.
My number one concern regarding
large-scale, corporate hog operations is that rural communities will see
them as "the solution" to today’s problems without seeing them
as a potential "source" of problems for tomorrow. Maybe there
are some communities so desperate for jobs that it makes sense to take the
risks. Maybe they feel they have to do something today to give them a
chance to do something better tomorrow. But, hog factories are a short-run
solution, at best, that may create more long run problems than they solve
today. Low-wage, assembly-line-like jobs should be viewed as a stop gap
strategy suitable only for communities with no other options. Sooner or
later non-thinking jobs will be done somewhere else on the globe, where
people will work harder for less money and are accustomed to doing
whatever they are told – by those who have no other options. In the
longer run, all non-thinking jobs will be done using computers and robots
– not by people anywhere.
The real opportunities for people to
lead successful lives in the future will be in "thinking" work.
The human mind is uniquely capable of complex thought. Almost anyone is
"smarter" than a computer. But, people need to develop their
unique human abilities to think. We need to accept the responsibility for
thinking and for creating thinking jobs for ourselves and for others. As
long as rural people think their problems are solved, or will be solved by
someone else, they see no incentive to begin doing the things they need to
do to ensure the future of their community.
The primary advantages for rural areas
in the twenty-first century will be the unique qualities of life
associated with open spaces, clean air, clean water, scenic landscapes,
and communities of energetic, thinking, caring people. Communities that
sacrifice these long run advantages for short run economic gains may have
a difficult time surviving in the new century.
Thus, my number one concern is that
large-scale, corporate hog operations are tomorrow’s problem disguised
as today’s solution. They may keep rural people from doing the things
that need to be done today to ensure the future of their communities.
Large-scale, corporate hog operations will not create communities where
our children and their children will choose to live and grow. Communities
with a future must take positive actions today to ensure a desirable
quality of life for themselves, their children, and rural children of
future generations. |
