Does Mrs. Kerry Really Want Organic Hog Farms?
September 10, 2004
Teresa Heinz Kerry lavishly praised organic hog farming at one of her husband’s recent campaign rallies in Iowa. Is Mrs. Kerry really sure that this is what she should offer America?
I grew up next to Herman Weaver’s outdoor hogs. Mrs. Kerry grew up in a fancy urban neighborhood that definitely had no hogs.
Mrs. Kerry, the first problem with outdoor hogs is that they are a huge eyesore. Herman’s hogs occupied about 20 acres of land that they kept completely barren with their instinctive digging for roots and tubers. The soil erosion was dreadful. They also turned the stream running through their pasture into a huge mud hole. Hogs can’t sweat, so they seek out mud-or create it.
The second problem is that outdoor hogs are generally far smellier than indoor hogs. The confinement farms flush the wastes into lagoons and pits where the solids sink to the bottom and odor is minimized. How could an outdoor hog farm minimize odors? Organic farmers brag about how they’re recycling their manure “naturally.” That’s how Herman did it too.
There are also serious welfare concerns for little pigs raised outdoors, Mrs. Kerry. Hogs not only suffer in summer heat, but they lack the heavy hair coats of cattle and horses to keep them warm in winter. Mark Honeyman, a livestock specialist at Iowa State, says outdoor pork production is virtually impossible during the harsh winters in Iowa.
He says the dirt-floored, un-insulated huts typically provided by organic hog farmers often can’t hold enough warmth to keep newborn piglets alive. Some organic hog farmers use bedded pens instead-but the bedding encourages more digestive diseases in the piglets, including scours and diarrhea. Also, too often, the little pigs get crushed by their own mothers rolling over on them.
Then there’s the inevitable fighting that goes on among outdoor hogs. My horses and free-range chickens spend huge amounts of time and energy settling their places in the pecking order, and so did Herman’s hogs. The favorite tactic was for the aggressor hog to grab another hog’s tail in its teeth, and hold on until the opponent was exhausted.
The worst problem with the organic hog farms, however, is they take too much land. Good land is the scarcest resource on the planet. The National Center for Appropriate Technology suggests that organic farmers can stock their farms at 12 to 15 pigs per acre. That may be a bit high, but even accepting that figure Iowa has close to 5 million hogs at any given time. That means taking 370,000 acres of good land away from Nature for hog playgrounds that aren’t needed. Nationally, the U.S. has about 28 million sows and pigs, which would need 2 million acres of pastureland. Whose state parks should we convert into that much hog pasture?
The farmland we have now is already being used, either for domestic food supplies or food exports. American farmers have just grown record crops of corn and soybeans, and these weren’t enough to supply the growing demand of a more populous and affluent world. Thus more land is being cleared for farming in the species-rich tropics.
I’m sure Mrs. Kerry meant well. In the Kerry’s elite social circle, organic food is preferred because it’s more expensive and exclusive. It’s also praised-for the wrong reasons-by the New York Times. Like so many things in life, however, the reality is a lot more complicated.
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