Regarding the March 16 editorial “Megafarms need greater controls” about your support of local control in the hog industry.
I am a grain farmer in a rural county in Downstate Illinois, and I take exception to your position for at least two reasons:
The first is that counties like mine do not want the responsibility nor do they have the expertise to administer fairly the obvious technical rules that allow the siting of a hog farm. The funding for such advice is not readily available in counties like mine either. In fact, my county board has taken a position of not wanting this responsibility given to it by the state.
Second, local politics play an important part in decision-making, at the cost of good scientific knowledge. Many in rural counties are like myself, fifth generation family farmers. In that time, there have been obvious disagreements among neighbors, and asking for a siting might be a reason for a board to vote a person down because of past conflicts and not because the hog farm is a danger to anyone.
There was a new hog waste facilities law passed by the legislature in the fall of 1997. It had far-reaching impact on the safety and siting of these hog megafarms. I submit that this law should be allowed to work before new additional and possibly unneeded laws are passed. One only needs to look to Minnesota’s local siting laws that reach down to the township level to see the patchwork those farmers must work within.
If these laws get much more restrictive, more hog farms will be moving out of the Midwest to the West and even to Mexico. Our corn and soybean prices will suffer because of the added transportation costs, and we will not be able to purchase as many inputs from our city cousins as we would like. We will all suffer.
I would submit that the Tribune form an editorial agriculture board that can focus on and have an educated opinion about issues that affect the most important industry in Illinois. This would be an important first step before writing unsound editorials.
I really believe this new bill is simply a way to develop a divisive campaign issue among legislative candidates in the fall election. One would hope there is no chance of the bill surviving a Senate vote.
