Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Livestock Legislation in Indiana

Livestock bills move to Senate
Efforts to regulate concentrated animal feeding operations get bipartisan support in House
BY PAM THARP CORRESPONDENT

Two bills that will regulate concentrated animal feeding operations have passed the Indiana House with bipartisan support and advance to the Indiana Senate.

House Bill 1075, which restricts the location of new CAFOs and confined feeding operations to two miles from state park and reservoir boundaries, passed on its third reading Tuesday morning by a 51-47 vote.

Area state representatives Phil Pflum, a Democrat, and Republicans Tom Saunders and Tom Knollman supported the setback bill. The bill was amended to allow existing livestock operations within the two-mile perimeter to expand, which was an issue for some representatives, Saunders said.

"If they are good neighbors, there's no reason not to allow expansion," Saunders said. Read More

I wrote an article about this subject last fall called “Peak Ag”. I talked about how agriculture is continually being told where they are no longer welcome. And this new bill in Indiana is a great example. Regardless of the science, soil type, topography, etc, if this bill passes you couldn’t build a modern livestock facility within two miles of a state park. The biggest problem with this is that society has decided that science is not good enough to make these decisions anymore, but rather we should make them with our emotions. That’s find and dandy, but think about what state your emotions will be in when we can no longer produce enough food in this country to feed ourselves. Food has to be grown somewhere.

2 comments:

Sunny Badger said...

Troy:

I live in a township that is zoned residential ag. In the next township over zone primary ag, someone is planning to build a 3800 cow cafo. Large developments with nearly 200 homes are two miles due east of the proposed cafo. One of the best trout streams in western Wisconsin has its source 5 miles south of the site. All the runoff heads right for the trout stream.

Another large cafo in the area has had a number of manure smells -- that were discovered by not reported -- that have dumped into another major trout stream in western Wisconsin.

Do you think we should be concerned about such a facility coming into our neighborhood? Since the site township is zoned primary ag and the town board is run by farms who will receive manure benefits from the operation and rent and leasing income, do you think the citizens in that township have a right to be concerned about their political representation?

Do you think we should be concerned that owners of the four cafos currently operating in our county contribute heavily to state representatives and senators who happen to be on their respective ag committees. We are talking thousands of dollars in contribution. These same operations are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars of subsidizes from the government. Does that seem right to you?

Troy Hadrick said...

If you live in an area that is zoned ag, why does it surprise you that someone may want to build a large feedlot or dairy?

Nothing you have said would concern me. Let me ask you this. Would you feel better if their were 38 farms in this area that all had 100 head? I would be interested to hear your ideas on that.

And yes smells are going to be associated with any type of farm, but that is why there is zoning.

This facility will have to spend a lot of money for their nutrient management plan to be completed. These plans work very well and are put together by scientists who are experts in environmental studies. They test everything before they approve the plan. I trust science, not emotions.

Anyone can donate to political candidates, so unless you have some sort of proof of bribery there isn't much to talk about there.

If you don't like agriculture, you should probably live in an area that is not zoned ag.