The Rural Voice, 2001-05, Page 65PERTH 1!W
County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER
The following is taken from a
submission that was made to the
Walkerton Inquiry by Russ Danbrook
on March 22, 2001 in Waterloo.
I would like to address three major
issues.
Intensive Livestock
The first, and probably the most
controversial issue is surrounding the
topic of Intensive Livestock
Operations. As a director of the Perth
County Pork Producers, I was asked by
the Perth County council to join with
other commodity groups, farm
organizations, conservation authorities,
OMAFRA and the MOE to discuss the
problems and develop a strategy that
could work well in our county. By
1996 we had developed a submission
paper to the Ontario Minister of
Agriculture, Noble Villeneuve. Jointly
we answered what we thought were the
issues of Intensive Livestock
Operations. Our recommendations at
that time basically were: Nutrient
Management Plans (NMP's) and
Minimum Distance Separation (MDS)
should be applied to all new livestock
buildings.
Ownership of all of the land
• required was not essential.
A dispute mechanism body should
be established to deal with complaints
that did not require MOE involvement.
Perth County council accepted our
suggestions, which led to the formation
of a committee. This committee was
named the Agricultural Peer Review
Committee. I have been on that
committee since its inception, and have
been the chairman for the last three
years. We have successfully resolved a
number of disputes in our county, and
our committee has become a model for
a number of other counties in this
province. When we started, our focus
on water was on nitrates and
phosphates, and their effect on surface
and ground water. Walkerton changed
that focus dramatically to bacterial
contamination such as coliforms, and
more predominantly, E. Coli. The
question then, I think, is how do we
cope with the overall problem?
I believe:
• The province should proceed with the
legislation surrounding Intensive
Livestock operations. Farmers,
municipal politicians, and even the
opponents of larger facilities need to
have guidelines in place to deal with
problems that may occur. This
legislation also needs to contain
enforcement components to help in the
resolution process.
• All nutrient users, not just agriculture,
should be required to do nutrient
management plans. The goal, as it
applies to nutrients, should be that
nothing leaves the farm as runoff.
As a farmer myself, I am not here to
necessarily define or defend what I
think is too big or small in terms of size
of operations or barns. The point that I
do want to make though, is that farmers
need to be able to farm in a way that is
"economically viable". Farmers that
are economically viable have a much
better ability to comply with the
standards which will be imposed under
the Livestock Operations Act.
As farmers, we are told that we
should try to comply with the "Best
Management Guidelines" as set out
jointly by the commodity organizations,
farm organizations and OMAFRA. I
think that we must evolve further than
that in our thinking to where we talk
about "Best Alternative Management
Practices". Different soil types and
land topography, different cropping
practices and different weather should
all play a role in our decision making
process as it involves our farming
practices.
Currently, farmers are encouraged to
think of manure in terms of its nutrient
properties, and that spreading of
manure should be done to maximize
nutrient uptake in growing crops. This
can lead to a very small spreading time
in the month of May before corn, small
grains and oilseed crops are planted, or
after wheat crops come off of the field
in August. From a strictly science -based
perspective, this is probably the most
accepted way to minimize the loss of
nutrient runoff into our surface water.
As unpopular as this might initially
sound, I would suggest that in some
cases manure should be allowed to be
considered more as a waste. I say this
because of factors such as societal
acceptance.
For instance, the cottage areas all
along Lake Huron are concerned with
odour associated with spreading of
manure atter the wheat is taken off in
August. Winter spreading in that "area
of excellence", if done carefully and at
lighter spreading rates could certainly
work to reduce conflict between cottage
Jim Van Herk, President
519-595-4863
• The Rural Voice is provided to Perth
County Pork Producers by the PCPPA.
owners and livestock farmers. I myself
spread manure year-round from my
operation. No large amounts are spread
at any one time, but small amounts, at
regular intervals are put onto the land
as weather permits. Current thinking is
that this is wrong and that I should be
heading towards year-round storage
with an application target of pre -crop,
spreading on land that is pre -tilled to
ensure minimum nutrient loss.
Sounds good! But what have we in
practice?
Research has been done at Centralia
College that indicates that there is less
manure being produced today than
there was 10-15 years ago. This being
the case, one has to wonder why there
is a problem, or what that problem
actually is.
Individual farmers, being told that a
once a year spreading window is the
answer, go out in May and try to get as
much of the manure applied to their
land as quickly as possible so as not to
delay planting.
I am concerned that while this might
be a good individual practice, the
collective effect that farmers across the
province might have, all spreading at
the same time, could really actually be
detrimental to the environment. This is
especially true in years where we are
subject to abnormally heavy rainfall, as
we were in May 2000.
Thirty years .ago. when "liquid
manure" started gaining acceptance as a
handling option, farmers spread it using
500 -gallon tankers. A good day's work
might have been the spreading of
15,000 to 20,000 gallons. Equipment
got larger! With that, farmers went
from being capable of spreading 15,000
gallons per day to 300,000 gallons per
day. In addition there are some custom
operators who advertise that they can
spread 500.000 gallons per day if they
don't have to haul it too far.
I believe that this area really
deserves some thought before we
include it in legislation as the only
answer. I would like to see more
research done in the processes by
which contaminants, such as manure,
are filtered out of water so that it again
becomes potable. Based on that
research, I would like us to be able to
again look at our Best Management
Practices and consider instead Best
Alternative Management Practices.°
(to be continued next month)
MAY 2001 61