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Working Conditions
Labor, a huge factor in the life of
any farmer, takes on a new perspective in hog operations. Toxic gases
and associated offensive odors from manure produced as part of a confined
system remain a major concern, while producers trying alternative housing
systems report few or no problems.
“There’s no comparison,” said Mark
Moulton, a Rush City, Minn., swine producer who uses a deep straw system.
In a hoop barn, “there’s no runoff, there are no lagoons and no gases.
The smell doesn’t compare.”
When Moulton’s neighbors saw him building
hoop barns, they were concerned about pungent odors wafting across their
fields. Over the past few years, however, they have found their fears
groundless. Moulton invited them and others to a picnic 10 feet from
his hoop house.
“You couldn’t smell a thing,” he said.
For producers, working with animals
directly can be more rewarding than shoveling grain to pigs in crates.
The systems require more attention and pig handling, which many producers
relish.
“It’s relatively easy, the pigs will
teach you how to do it,” Honeyman said, “and it can be rewarding if
you like working with animals.” Hogs, which Honeyman said may be smarter
than dogs, are fun to work with.
Alternative swine production systems
are for people “who like managing animals rather than equipment and
machinery,” he continued. “One reason people raise animals is because
they want contact with them. In confinement, we’ve automated ourselves
into managers of the system rather than working animals.”
Dwight Ault, who has raised hogs for
more than four decades, genuinely enjoys working with pigs. Once he
switched to winter farrowing in a deep-straw system, he found he could
hone his husbandry skills. “It’s wonderfully productive,” he said of
the system. “It gives me more time with the hogs and a chance to observe.”
Health
Research has turned up potentially
troubling information about the health of workers in confinement systems.
David Schwartz, a University of Iowa pulmonary specialist, and other
researchers found that workers were prone to upper respiratory disorders
from lungs inflamed from exposure to grain dust, airborne particles
of fecal matter, and other debris and gases such as ammonia, hydrogen
sulfide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from hog manure in confinement
barns.
Workers in confinement buildings have
greater incidence of acute respiratory illness – with symptoms such
as coughing, sore throats, runny noses, burning or watering of eyes,
shortness of breath and wheezing, chronic bronchitis, and inflammation,
wrote Kelly Donham of the Iowa Center for Agricultural Safety and Health
in the Journal of Agromedicine. Others have reported reduced lung function.
The dust and gases blamed for such
ailments are much less prevalent, or nonexistent, in alternatives such
as hoop structures or pasture systems. Moreover, alternative system
producers do not administer antibiotics for disease prevention. Administering
antibiotics to livestock has been blamed for lowering the effectiveness
of those medicines for the treatment of human health problems because
indiscriminate use encourages the evolution of new strains of bacteria
immune to drugs.
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