Future profits in the pork industry look bright, which is leading pork producers to develop new areas where they can construct and operate large scale hog farms.

Pork industry analysts and economists agree Wisconsin is largely an untapped resource of available farming facilities. Wisconsin farmers, especially in our area, have so far not been involved in large-scale hog farming to the extent of some neighboring states. However, investors from Iowa simply see Wisconsin as an undiscovered country, where they can expand to meet the growing demand for their product.

As of January of this year, Iowa’s pork industry recorded 34 consecutive months of above average profits.

This has led to a substantial increase in applications for permits to run large scale hog farming facilities in that state.

From 2002 to 2004, an average of 78 permits a year for animal feeding operations were issued in Iowa. The largest percentage was hog confinements. In 2005, the total was 203; and last year, 318, more than eight times the number in 2000 -- 38. The vast majority of the 17 million hogs raised in Iowa are raised in confinement operations.

There are more than 1,000 large confinements in North Iowa. The classification of “large” is based on a threshold of 2,500 or more hogs. Those with 2,500 or more must meet stricter requirements for construction, required by the Iowa Legislature and enforced by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Despite the growth of the pork industry, the consistent truth about large scale hog farming is that the only people interested in having such operations are those who make money off them. In some places where large-scale hog operations have proliferated, they've challenged the environment, particularly the groundwater, and pose possible health and safety risks for nearby residents. There's little doubt they cause a nuisance to the senses, sometimes resulting in nuisance lawsuits, and can result in decreased land and property values.

In 1995, Garry Klinkner and his wife Patricia, moved from California, where he had been a building superintendent, to a small farm in Davis County, which is in southeast Iowa about 20 miles from Ottumwa. He had grown up in rural Iowa and wanted to retire there.

When they moved in, the closest hog operation was a 300-head outdoor sow facility. The Klinkners never even noticed it.

By 1997, however, the Klinkners had six large scale hog farms, totally approximately 20,000 hogs, within four miles of them.

Klinkner, who is 61 years old and raises beef cattle while also selling insurance, says he has difficulty describing to the degree the large scale hog farms destroyed Davis County’s rural community.

“There is no more community, everybody hates each other,” Klinkner said. “About 10 percent of the people have completely ruined the entire way of life for the other 90 percent of the people.”

Klinkner said he’s lucky, some days he can’t smell the hog operations. Some days he hears the farm machinery quick enough to close the windows of his home. He said neighbors have set up a telephone alert system to warn each other of impending manure spreading.

“If you get the windows closed and then get the air conditioner or furnace on, it’s not that bad, but some days the smell just permeates everything, there’s no escaping it,” he said. “This is a plague. That’s what it is.”

In Iowa, large scale hog farms can be within a quarter mile of other residences. While property values on the whole have gone up, he said he knows of homes that have had to be abandoned and property that is basically worthless.

“My only advice to anybody who knows of any of these types of farms are coming to their area is to do anything they legally can do that keeps them out,” Klinkner said. “What’s hard to realize is why anyone would want to invest money in something that makes them hated by their neighbors.”

Klinkner joined the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a group fighting against the damage done to communities by large scale hog farming.

“What people don’t realize is how fast these things go up, they pop up like mushrooms,” Klinkner said. “It took just two years for our entire way of life to change.”

A Broadcaster investigation taking into account about a dozen studies, news reports and independent interviews in both the states of Iowa and North Carolina, where there are more than 10 million hogs, found that citizens, who had hog farming operations crop up near their residences, became miserable -- many to the point where they formed or joined grassroots organizations to fight the operations.

This leaves pork producers looking for greener pastures n places where there are little or no restrictions on running moderate-sized hog farming facilities. Wisconsin, with its Confined Animal Feed Operation (CAFO) law, allows farmers to operate hog facilities of up to 2,499 hogs with virtually no state monitoring. It is hog farming’s new frontier. Pork producers can run strings of these moderate-sized confinement operations together and collect pork’s growing profit.

“We just looked at a study yesterday that showed that modest growth will continue,” Iowa State University Extension Livestock Economist Professor John Lawrence said. “Producers are looking for places that would be good places to site these facilities. Meeting regulations and having suitable land for manure spreading are two main concerns.”

Lawrence said it’s a matter of using the right technology to construct a sound facility that correctly stores manure, and then also responsibly spreading the liquid manure, “so it doesn’t erode or leach into the ground and pollute the water.”

While municipalities with zoning or ordinances that limit animal units aren’t targeted for such operations, places like Vernon County, with no countywide protection, is a prime target for individual producers and large-scale farming investors.

Lawrence, who has traveled through Vernon County, said the fact that there are large packing plants nearby, such as a Tyson plant in Waterloo, Iowa, or the Hormel plant in Austin, Minn., certainly make southwest Wisconsin more attractive for large scale hog farming.

“There are several (packing plants) within a 150 mile radius,” Lawrence said. “That’s not the only factor -- you’d want a feed mill nearby, too. But it is a factor.”

Lawrence did note that Iowa packing plants accept hogs from as far away as Oklahoma, so transportation isn’t always a big concern.

Vernon County already has one 2,400-head hog operation that has received a building permit. Jeff and Bonnie Parr of Ferryville plan to build the facility in the town of Sterling near Retreat.

Meanwhile, the Vernon County Land and Water Conservation Committee meets July 13 to discuss two options to check such operations n a moratorium and/or a livestock siting ordinance. The Vernon County Health Committee was to take up the health and safety problems caused by such operations at its July 11 meeting, which took place after the Broadcaster’s deadline.

Vernon Leibbrandt, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Swine Studies at the University of Wisconsin, spent his career of studying hog farming. When discussing the “driftless” topography of Vernon County, the fact that it has coulees, ridges and valleys, and the fact that the county’s geology is largely karst, or fractured limestone, Liebbrandt didn’t mince words.

“If I was living in that area, I would be concerned about (large scale hog farming,)” Leibbrandt said. “Certainly you have special constraints that you need to recognize n and you do.”

Leibbrant retired in 2002, but not after working more than 20 years at the UW taking the lead in the university’s study of hog farming.

During the course of his career, he watched the proliferation of hog farming in North Carolina, which “started out innocently enough, but grew and grew until it was farms, packing houses n a huge conglomerate.”

“In North Carolina, some producers were very stellar, some were notoriously bad,” Leibbrant said. “There are all kinds of characters out there.”

The Broadcaster has received information from several different independent sources that up to eight hog farming facilities similar to that planned by the Parrs are being considered for Vernon County. The Broadcaster has also learned that in addition to Vernon County, Jackson, Monroe and Clark counties, are being eyed by Iowa investment groups to be home to a string of hog farming facilities. Jackson, Monroe and Clark counties are all very much like Vernon County -- none of them have countywide zoning. They have manure storage ordinances, but not animal siting ordinances.

Clark County Conservationist Matt Zoschake said the combination of not having restrictions and that the four counties are contiguous is important.

“I think that’s why pork producers from Iowa are looking at our counties,” Zoschake said.

Zoschake said he’s fielded half-a-dozen inquiries from Iowa-based pork producers looking to relocate to Clark County.

“Their reasoning varies n some aren’t concerned with (CAFO) regulations and aren’t interested in operating multiple facilities to fly under the radar,” Zoschake said. “Others are seeing if they can fly under the radar.”

Zoschake said that Clark County has dairy CAFO farms, but no CAFO hog operations. The county does have an animal manure management ordinance that is more stringent in its setbacks than federal regulations.

Monroe County Conservationist Al Hoff said he has received no inquiries about large scale hog farming, but about half of the municipalities in his county have their own zoning.

“The townships that aren’t zoned aren’t too concerned about it, because they’re agricultural anyway,” Hoff said. “Although we haven’t heard of anybody targeting us, we’re assuming the same thing is going to happen here.”

Gaylord Olson, the Jackson County Conservationist, added that he had not received inquiries about large scale hog farming operations. But he also added about half the municipalities in his county are also zoned.

Jackson County has a permitted CAFO hog facility near Hixton. Olson said he’s never heard a complaint about it.

“One of the obvious concerns investors may have is how much land is available,” Olson said.

Olson said Monroe and Jackson county both have likely less available land than Vernon and Clark counties, and Monroe and Jackson counties also have considerably more areas with zoning.

As the hog industry has continued to grow in Iowa so have complaints.

In 2002, Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, conducted a joint health study of factory farm facilities, such as that proposed in Vernon County. It found that the manure pits become anaerobic and putrid, polluting the air with particulate matter and many gases, including ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. The study said these gases can lead to a wide range of health complaints ranging from nausea, headaches, diarrhea to even life-threatening pulmonary edema.

The manure pits are necessary as a feeder pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste a day, or two-and-a-half times as much as a human. Although the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources requires municipalities to operate wastewater treatment facilities to properly handle human waste, a hog farm with 2,400 animals, will emit as much waste in a year as roughly 12,000 people, according to the DNR’s formula for converting waste.

While Iowa and North Carolina already have numerous political action committees wired to fight against the nuisance that large-scale hog farming presents, Wisconsin has virtually none. The Iowa PACs were formed because those living close to the large scale hog farms were troubled by the stench they give off n either from the operation itself or when the manure is spread.

A 1999 study by the University of Missouri found that the existence of a large scale hog farming operation decreases property values of nearby farms by about $100 an acre. A 1997 study found that property values for residences located near large scale hog farms dropped by 9 percent.

The smell of manure spread from large scale hog farming operations led to nuisance lawsuits, which led pork producers to lobby lawmakers to create “right-to-farm” laws. A similar law exists in Wisconsin. The laws basically say that landowners adjacent to agricultural operations, including large scale hog farming operations, can’t file nuisance lawsuits.

Yet, in Iowa, the “right-to-farm” laws have been successfully challenged. The 1998 case, Bormann v. Board of Supervisors, significantly altered “right-to-farm” legislation showing it is contrary to the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. In other words “right-to-farm” laws impede due process and equal protection under the law. While the Bormann case itself didn’t result in any damages against hog farmers, it has since been cited is other cases and has reduced protections large scale hog operations had under “right-to-farm” legislation.

In 2004, the Iowa case Gacke v. Pork Xtra, L.L.C., a nuisance suit filed by the Joseph and Linda Gacke against a neighboring hog operation, the court applied Bormann and awarded damages to the Gackes of approximately $50,000 for the loss of property value.

Wisconsin passed its own “right to farm” legislation in 1982 and added several amendments in the 1990s. According the State Bar of Wisconsin the legislation essentially “lifts the threat” of nuisance lawsuits by neighbors if the agricultural operation produces odor, noise, water pollution, or other nuisance type conditions.” The one loophole remaining in the “right to farm” statute is the ability to challenge a farming operation based on “substantial threat to public health or safety.” But the bar for challenging operations is very high because the threat has to be proven with scientific data and also be “reasonable”. In other words a battle to fight a large confinement operation would likely long, costly and even if you would win that battle the right to farm legislation is confusing about what damages can be awarded.

According to the Wisconsin Bar the right to farm legislation limits any relief to those who prove a substantial threat to public health and safety to “injunctive relief” and only if the relief does not “substantially and adversely affect the economic viability of the agricultural use.” And even then a farmer would have up to a year to comply with any injunction and the injunction would only apply if state cost-sharing funds were available to help pay for “nuisance abatement.”

Despite the limitations to control such operations it appears as though dissent is beginning to build in Wisconsin. Calumet County is in the process of trying to implement a local ordinance based on scientific findings that show a “substantial threat to public health and safety.” Calumet County Conservationist Eugene McLeod said the ordinance is based on data from a local study conducted by a group of northeast Wisconsin scientists that came to be known as the Karst Taskforce. McLeod said the taskforce grew out of various groups that sprouted about six years ago as a result of a 3,000 head dairy operation that “plopped down” in a fairly residential area. McLeod said neither the residents nor the county could stop that operation but the groups that formed as a result of that conflict produced the local study showing the hazard of such operations to groundwater in karst topography. That data is the basis of the proposed ordinance that has been approved by the Calumet County board of supervisors and will be submitted to the DNR within the next month, McLeod said.

McLeod said the ordinance would be more restrictive than the state and federal regulations and even more restrictive than the CAFO regulations that governs operations with 1,000 animal units or more. Whereas most local permitting regulations are attempts to control preconstruction issues such as setbacks from property lines and distances from wells this ordinance would also deal with operational issues, McLeod said.

And there are signs that some who oppose the expansion of these types of operations into Vernon County could challenge them based on the “health and safety” loophole. Dr. David Chakoian of Viroqua has submitted a report to the county titled “Health Effects of Confinement Hog Operations as Applied to the Proposed Parr Hog Farm.” The report is an analysis of existing studies outlining the adverse health effects of large confinement hog operations on neighbors and also outlines the existing health conditions of 11 residents that will reside next to the farm.

Whether this is the beginning of a challenge to the Wisconsin right to farm statute remains to be seen but it is clear the precedent is there based on challenges to similar legislation in Iowa and Washington that overturned their right to farm legislation because it conflicted with the constitutional right of their neighbors to due process.

People in Wisconsin generally have little idea of what makes up a large scale hog farm.

Hog farming in Wisconsin had declined over the past 25 years. The number of hogs raised in Wisconsin decreased from 3.5 million to 1.5 million in 2002.

About five years ago, the Wisconsin Pork Producers made a concerted effort to stop that trend. Leibbrandt prepared a draft plan for the Wisconsin Pork Producers that detailed a 10-year path towards increasing state hog production. This plan for growth in hog farming centered on large scale hog farming facilities or raising hogs specifically for specialty markets, such as organic or even specific restaurants.

Leibbrandt said the Wisconsin Pork Producers didn’t adopt his plan.

“It said basically there were two ways to go, bigger or to the specialty market,” Leibbrandt said. “What we were seeing at the time was that over time the rate of return per animal was decreasing. You either had to raise more or make them more valuable.”

He said that while Wisconsin farmers have never seen themselves as being “large” when it comes to pork production, that hurdle has already been crossed in Iowa.

“I don’t know what is specifically going on in (Vernon County) and I can’t read the minds of Iowa producers,” Leibbrandt said. “But looking at a place without zoning or any other protection other than what they state has, there is a bit of safe ground there to expand operations.”

Lawrence said a 10-year profit average per hog is $3.52, and the last three years have eclipsed that mark. Corn prices, pumped by the demands of ethanol production, went over $3 per bushel in 2006. Feed is the largest cost in hog production, Lawrence said, and could push costs 10 percent higher this year. About half of the total production cost is feed, and 80 percent of feed is corn, according to ISU’s Iowa Farm Outlook, published in November 2006.

Klinkner said that despite dealing with the smell of pig manure, it isn’t the single worst side effect of dealing with large scale hog farming.

An Iowa State University study completed in 2001 showed that confinement hog farming operations have up to a five percent mortality rate n not including piglets.

In Klinkner’s neck of the woods, that means of the 40,000 hogs raised each year within six miles of his home, about 2,000 of them die and must be disposed of properly.

Some are taken to reclamation centers. Some are composted. Some are burned.

“Can you imagine what it smells like when they burn a pile of rotting pigs for an afternoon or an entire day and night?” Klinkner said. “The odor is just absurd.”

Klinkner said the group of neighbors he’s worked with to combat the effects of large scale hog farming operations have all promised each other they would not sell their land to the hog farmers.

He’s bolstered when he sees legislation, like that passed recently in the Canadian province of Manitoba, which put a moratorium on large scale hog farming operations.

“They are going to have the strictest regulations,” Klinkner said. “They are going to require anaerobic digesters to use and dispose of the manure.”

Klinkner said the biggest problem he has with those who wish to set up large scale hog farming operations is that they often have the financial resources to do something else.

“Why would you want to spend $1 million to become the most hated person in your community?” he asked. “I’ve never gotten an answer for that one.”

(Deb Nicklay of the Mason City (Iowa) Globe Gazette contributed to this story.)