After an all-night session at the Manitoba Legislature, Bill 24 has passed its final reading and received royal assent.

Better known as the Red Tape Reduction and Government Efficiency Act, Bill 24 covers legislation ranging from consumer protection and labour relations, to residential tenancies and transportation of dangerous goods, but it has been proposed changes to hog production that garnered the most attention as the legislation made its towards becoming law.

“It’s good news for us of course, to be allowed to build barns without the requirement of an anaerobic digester, so it’s a step in the right direction,” said George Matheson, chairman of the Manitoba Pork Council. “It didn’t surprise me that it passed.”

The newly passed act amends The Environment Act, removing general prohibitions for the expansion of hog barns and manure storage facilities. Bill 24 also strikes the winter manure application ban from the Environment Act, although winter application would continue to be prohibited for all livestock operations in Manitoba under the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation.

• Read more: Hog production faces opposing ideologies

While hog producers have never been banned outright from building new barns, the previous requirement that all new barns install costly anaerobic digesters effectively made new barn construction unattainable, the Pork Council has said.

Matheson said it’s possible that some new construction will begin as early as next year.

“I think that in 2018 we might see a few,” he said. “We’ve got the swine development corporation in place to assist producers with that — It’s one thing to be allowed to build barns, it’s another thing to get them built and go through the permitting process.”

He hopes to see an average of 10 new barns built each year for the next 10 years, enough to cover the current hog shortfall experienced by processors in the province.

“I’d say that’s a realistic goal, I hope we build more than that, but I think that’s very doable,” Matheson said.

Keystone Agricultural Producers were also pleased to hear the bill had passed its third reading.

“Clearly the government has made a commitment to taking agricultural issues seriously and dedicating the legislative time necessary to find resolutions to them,” said KAP general manager James Battershill.

The activist group Hog Watch Manitoba had opposed Bill 24, but could not be reached for comment before press time.

— With files from Allan Dawson

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Those are just a sampling of the varied opinions heard by an all-party committee of the provincial legislature last week during two days of public hearing on Bill 24. Better known as the Red Tape Reduction and Government Efficiency Act, the omnibus bill covers legislation ranging from consumer protection and labour relations, to residential tenancies and transportation of dangerous goods — but it was the proposed changes to hog production that garnered the most attention.

In many cases the issues being raised aren’t even covered by the proposed legislation, industry representatives told the committee.

“Manure does not get into rivers and lakes, in fact it is illegal for manure to leave a field, injecting manure also reduces greenhouse gases and significantly reduces odour,” George Matheson, Manitoba Pork’s chairperson told committee members. “By law, manure management plans with soil test results are filed annually with Manitoba Sustainable Development… these requirements will not change with these proposed amendments.”

Matheson was the first of about 60 registered presenters to speak to the Standing Committee on Legislative Affairs and addressed proposed changes to The Environment Act. If passed, hog producers will no longer have to install pricey anaerobic digesters in order to expand their operations, a cost so prohibitively high it effectively made new barn construction unattainable, the MPC says.

• Read more: Hog production faces opposing ideologies

In a press release issued this spring, the Manitoba government described Bill 24 as removing “general prohibitions from The Environment Act for the expansion of hog barns and manure storage facilities.”

It’s something that the Pork Council’s general manager called long overdue.

Speaking as a private citizen, Andrew Dickson did not mince words. He called the so-called hog barn moratorium brought in under Gary Doer’s NDP government “cynical fabrications of utter nonsense” that sated political rather than environmental concerns.

He continued, adding that “the (Greg) Selinger government recognized that it had been left a rotting corpse and devised a convoluted way around the legislation,” but that the reduction of red tape was what hog producers really needed.

Michael Stainton of the Lake Winnipeg Foundation agreed that anaerobic digesters aren’t the answer to nutrient run-off, but also expressed concerns around the expansion of Manitoba’s hog industry.

“Anaerobic digestion should not be the factor limiting the growth of Manitoba’s hog industry, however, we strongly believe that industry expansion should be limited by the availability of suitable land for manure spreading,” he said. “Currently hog production in Manitoba is very concentrated… because high costs prohibit the long-distance transport of manure, manure spreading on these operations is also very concentrated.”

He noted 35 per cent of the province’s hog operations are located on one per cent of the province’s land.

“The moment we start spreading more manure than crops can use it’s no longer fertilizer, it’s a waste product to be disposed of and as such poses a risk to our water supply.”

If passed, Bill 24 would also decrease the number of infrastructure assessments that public and semi-public water suppliers are required to conduct. Currently, water system infrastructure must be tested every five years, but the Progressive Conservative government is seeking to change the test interval period to 10 years.

It’s a prospect that caused concern for Mike Sutherland who presented to the committee on behalf of Peguis First Nation. He said a potential expansion of intensive livestock operations, coupled with a reduction in oversight, could spell disaster for his community.

“This bill is going to have a negative effect,” Sutherland told the committee. “Peguis floods yearly, it’s at the basin in the north end… south of the basin is all farmland, with a fair share of hog barn operations, Peguis gets its drinking water from the groundwater.”

He added that since the hog-barn moratorium came into effect, there has been a reduction in a number of health issues related to water quality in his community.

But as with many presenters, much of the information presented was anecdotal, something Stainton said points to the root of the problem — a lack of scientific data.

“Without data, industry, government, regulators and concerned citizens cannot accurately quantify the current impact of Manitoba’s hog industry on water quality,” he said. “We just don’t know.”

Bill 24 would also strike the winter manure application ban from the Environment Act, although winter application would continue to be prohibited for all livestock operations in Manitoba under the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation.

Several presenters, including Stainton, asked the committee to keep the ban on winter application enshrined in legislation.

“The Lake Winnipeg Foundation urges that Bill 24 be amended so as to not repeal Section 40.2 of the Manitoba Environment Act,” Stainton said, calling it the most important environmental protection afforded Lake Winnipeg in the last two decades. “The ban on winter spreading of all manure should be maintained in legislation, the highest form of protection for Manitoba’s water.”

Finance Minister Cam Friesen responded to concerns about the proposed change by stressing that removing the provision from the legislation was about eliminating “redundancy,” not weakening environmental protections.

“Let me clarify one thing for you, our government has no plans to allow for a change in terms of winter manure spreading,” he told Stainton.

But opposition MLA James Allum pushed back against the assertion.

“What he fails to say is that if it stays in legislation, then he has to come before a committee like this and do proper consultation,” said the representative for Fort Garry-Riverview. “When it’s in regulation, any Wednesday morning at a cabinet meeting, with a stroke of a pen he can get rid of it.”

However, hog producers like Margaret Rempel urged the MLAs to see manure as a resource rather than a waste product.

“Livestock manure is a very valuable resource to me as a farmer,” she said. “As a high-quality, organic fertilizer it provides superior nutrition for growing crops, contributes significantly to the building of healthy soils in the long term and of course is a local product and a renewable product.”

Lyanne Cypres spoke to the hog industry’s ability to build something else all together — community. She came to Neepawa from the Philippines to work for HyLife Foods as a temporary foreign worker. Today, she is a Canadian citizen and said that Neepawa is no longer the “ghost town” it was when she arrived in 2009.

She told the committee she was speaking on behalf of the more than 1,000 immigrants who have come to the small town to work in the industry in the hope of a better life than the one they left behind.

They “had their lives and their family’s lives changed through the pork industry in Manitoba… we are grateful for this chance,” Cypres said. “We would like to see the pork industry flourish.”

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Provincial Finance Minister Cameron Friesen on Thursday introduced Bill 24 for first reading. Among its 15 proposed amendments to various pieces of legislation, the bill would repeal two sections of the Environment Act dealing with hog operations and winter manure spreading.

The previous NDP government introduced the freeze on new hog barn construction and expansions in certain areas of the province starting in 2006, expanding provincewide in 2011, with the stated aim of reducing phosphorus loading in Lake Winnipeg.

The province’s ban on winter spreading of manure from Nov. 10 to April 10 each year was imposed in 2013, also with the stated aim of reducing phosphorus runoff into waterways.

The province has said it imposed the winter spreading ban because applying nutrients onto frozen or snow-covered soils “results in an increased risk of nutrient runoff” which in waterways “contributes directly to algal blooms in Lake Winnipeg and elsewhere.”

In its press release Thursday, the province said Bill 24 would “remove general prohibitions from the Environment Act for the expansion of hog barns and manure storage facilities.”

Those prohibitions, in section 40.1 of the Act, require a provincial permit before a hog barn or hog manure storage can be built. It also prevents a hog operation from increasing its animal unit capacity.

Permits for new barns or storage would be granted only if the manure would be treated via anaerobic digestion or “another environmentally sound treatment that is similar to or better than anaerobic digestion.”

The province and Manitoba hog producers agreed in 2015 on a pilot project that would allow new barns to be built to certain environmental requirements, such as two-cell manure lagoons and limits on soil phosphorus.

Mike Teillet, manager of sustainable development at Manitoba Pork, said Monday the province’s proposed bill will “eliminate the need for impractical and extremely costly anaerobic digesters to build a pig barn in Manitoba.”

That provision, he said, “essentially stopped barn construction in the province and that is why it was often referred to as a ‘ban’ or ‘moratorium.'”

The digesters also “would have done nothing to protect the environment,” he said — and cutting that requirement is thus “a sound and practical action by the Manitoba government.”

Bill 24, as introduced Thursday, also orders a repeal for section 40.2 of the Act, which covers the winter manure spreading ban. In an “explanatory note” attached to Bill 24, the government describes the prohibition on winter manure spreading as “eliminated.”

However, Manitoba Pork’s Teillet said Monday, the ban’s inclusion in Bill 24 serves only to remove a “redundant” section of the Act that remains part of the province’s Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation, thus keeping the winter manure spreading ban in effect.

Manitoba Pork, he noted, “has never asked the government to remove the winter spreading ban” and the province’s hog producers remain “committed to environmentally-sound production practices.”

In introducing Bill 24, Friesen said Thursday the status quo “has created unnecessary challenges for both industry and government.”

The bill’s assorted proposals, he said, “were identified as priority actions by both industry leaders and the civil service” and will “reduce the red tape that is creating burdens on business, non-profits, municipalities, private citizens and government officials.” — AGCanada.com Network

UPDATE, March 20, 2017: A previous version of this article stated Bill 24 proposed to eliminate Manitoba’s ban on winter manure spreading. The article has been updated to include additional information from Manitoba Pork.

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The province on Wednesday announced its new “Strategy for a Waste-Free Ontario: Building the Circular Economy,” which calls for industries to divert more of the waste they produce away from landfills, and in some cases to require manufacturers to take “full responsibility” for management of their products and packaging.

Other items to be banned from landfills under the strategy would include beverage containers, corrugated cardboard and fluorescent bulbs and tubes, the province said.

The strategy calls for Ontario to start consultations this fall on a policy statement on reducing and recovering food and organic wastes. A stakeholder working group is already being set up, the province said in its strategy document.

A food and organic waste action plan would then be implemented, and consultations on disposal bans would begin, in 2018. In the “medium to long term” — 2019 and beyond — those bans would be put in place, while “providing time for industries to prepare.”

The province said it has “committed” to banning food waste from disposal — including both landfills and incinerators — to “increase diversion of these wastes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Such a ban, the province said, “will require extensive consultation and co-ordination with our partners and will be implemented once infrastructure capacity is adequately developed.”

While producing energy from waste and generating alternative fuels are permitted as waste management options, those methods “will not count towards diversion in Ontario,” the province said. However, “the recovery of nutrients, such as digestate from anaerobic digestion, is considered diversion.”

Food and organic wastes — including home-generated food scraps, leaves, yard wastes and food waste from processors, wholesalers, grocers and restaurants — make up about a third of Ontario’s waste stream, the province said.

“When we send food and organic wastes to landfill, we lose valuable resources that could be used to support healthy soils and opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including enhancing soil carbon storage through the use of compost.”

Food waste also “represents the resources embedded in food, including energy and water used to grow, harvest, process, transport and sell food and food-related products,” the province said, noting about $31 billion worth of food is wasted in Canada each year.

Households are believed to be responsible for about 47 per cent of food waste, with the remainder generated along the food supply chain, the province added.

Furthermore, the province said, about six per cent of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the waste sector. From there, about 90 per cent of emissions come from solid waste disposal in landfills, and most of that is in organic waste, the province added.

Other jurisdictions in Canada have already imposed bans on disposal of food waste, including Nova Scotia’s provincewide ban in 1998 and Vancouver’s municipal ban in 2015.

“This strategy provides the blueprint for Ontario to close the resource loop by transforming how we think about waste,” provincial Environment Minister Glen Murray said Wednesday in a provincial release.

“By moving to a circular, low-carbon economy, Ontario is seizing the opportunity to be a leader in a global movement toward a more sustainable model with significant economic, social and environmental benefits.” — AGCanada.com Network

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The Rural Municipality of Oakview council last month turned down an application for a 6,000-space feeder/finish operation near Rivers even though a technical review committee report said it met the necessary requirements.

Council gave no official reason for the rejection. Reeve Brent Fortune declined to comment.

But some local residents see the application as an attempt by the province and the industry to ram an unpopular project down their throats.

“This is an attempt to force an industry on an increasingly unwilling public,” said Jon Crowson, a retired farmer who spoke against the proposed operation at a public conditional use hearing in Oak River December 19.

Others at the meeting also voiced their opposition. Council rejected the proposal the following day.

The application by local farmer Wim Verbruggen was the first under a new government protocol to allow construction of new and expanded hog barns in Manitoba. Several more are in the pipeline.

The new procedure is supposed to make it easier to build new barns after the former NDP government enacted restrictions in 2011 which virtually shut down hog barn construction throughout the province.

The question now is how Manitoba’s hog industry will expand if municipal councils reject even modest efforts to ease building restrictions.

The events in Oakview municipality bring back memories of 15 to 20 years ago, when local residents repeatedly packed community halls to oppose hog barn applications because of environmental concerns, especially odour.

Such protests have decreased lately because of the government’s restrictions, plus a prolonged economic slump in the hog industry when few barns were being built anyway.

But some worry about a return to those days, now that the industry is recovering and new applications are coming forward.

“We’re back to the 1990s, if this is going to carry on, where municipal councillors are dealing with issues that we thought, and everybody agreed, they weren’t going to get involved in,” said Andrew Dickson, Manitoba Pork Council general manager.

Dickson was referring to changes in 2006 to the Planning Act limiting restrictions rural municipalities could put on hog operations. The reason for the changes was that the province felt RMs were straying into areas outside their jurisdiction.

But Crowson said those changes took authority away from local officials, put it in the hands of government, and public resentment has been simmering ever since.

“The province in its infinite wisdom has essentially gutted any opportunity for municipal input in this process through the (changes to) the Planning Act,” he said. “I would suggest to you that this pretty much makes a mockery of the so-called conditional use process.”

The technical review committee report gave Verbruggen’s application a passing grade, saying it met all of the setback, odour control, manure disposal and other requirements.

But Crowson and others claimed the report was flawed because it failed to consider that a proposed earthen manure storage lagoon was situated right over a surface watercourse.

That put the proposal in direct violation of provincial environmental law, Crowson argued.

“I don’t see how council can continue to give further consideration to this proposal, given clear non-compliance with the Environment Act,” he told the conditional use hearing.

Council had three options: to accept the proposal as it was, to reject it, or to accept it with additional measures, including shelterbelts and lagoon covers. It voted against the application by a vote of 5-0 with one abstention.

Dickson said he was disappointed that Verbruggen’s application met all the necessary standards but was turned down anyway.

It now remains to be seen what happens to other applications pending under the new protocol.

That includes a proposed $9-million swine genetics facility in the RM of Woodlands by the Dutch company Topigs Norsvin. Local residents have voiced strong opposition to the plan, saying it is just another hog barn by a different name.

Dickson said he hoped the Oakview experience won’t put a damper on other applications.

“We hope there are going to be municipalities that understand economic development is good and the hog industry is a real potential driver of economic development in their communities.”

Up to now, the previous NDP government had made it nearly impossible to build new and expanded hog operations. Under the Save Lake Winnipeg Act adopted in 2011, new barns would require prohibitively expensive anaerobic digesters for manure treatment.

Manitoba Pork and the province last year reached an agreement allowing new barns under certain conditions. That included having two lagoons for manure storage as equivalent to an anaerobic digester.

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Producers attending the Manitoba Pork Council annual meeting last week were told a “special pilot protocol” would result in the resumption of new barn construction although there were contradictory messages around whether this translates to an end of the province’s moratorium on new hog barns.

“We’ve been in negotiations with the province for quite a while and we’ve reached an agreement, which we’re referring to as a special pilot project protocol,” said Mike Teillet, sustainable development manager for the council. “That protocol outlines 11 additional steps that producers have to go through in order to build a barn. Up until now, we’ve been essentially under a moratorium. Now under this new, special pilot project protocol, we are now able to build barns again.”

A spokesman for Manitoba minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives later said although the provincial government supports the concept, it has not yet been approved.

“It hasn’t even been officially submitted as a pilot project to the province for approval,” said Caedmon Malowany in a later interview. “We’re hoping that this pilot project would go through, but certainly Manitoba Pork has not submitted an official proposal for the pilot project, so we can’t approve it or deny it till we get a formal request for it, but certainly we support the idea of it.”

What constitutes an official proposal was not made clear, but Minister Ron Kostyshyn addressed the pilot project proposal as recently as this February. Speaking at a Keystone Agricultural Producers meeting, he said, “we keep improving on the regulations, in partnership with Manitoba Pork, and I think we’ve come to a consensus that we’re addressing the one situation from both sides.”

He then went on to say that pilot projects exploring alternatives to anaerobic digestion, particularly in areas of the province with lower levels of phosphorus, were under consideration.

That language was echoed in the protocol announced by Manitoba Pork last week, which says new barns can be constructed west of the Red River and existing facilities can be expanded in the east, with the exception of the rural municipalities of Hanover and La Broquerie.

To qualify, producers must prove they have an adequate land base for phosphorus dispersal, and must agree to either inject manure or incorporate it into soil within 48 hours to prevent run-off.

Producers will also be limited to a soil phosphorus level of 60 parts per million — a 200 per cent reduction from the current limit of 180 parts per million, Teillet said.

“We had very, very, let me emphasize this, very, direct communication from the senior staff level that this protocol is a go. So from our perspective this is a go,” he said.

That was also the message given by outgoing council chairman Karl Kynoch, who described the deal as a “fix” while standing in front of a photograph of him sitting down with Kostyshyn, as well as Premier Greg Selinger and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh.

Kynoch noted the provincial government was unable to make an announcement regarding new barn construction, due to an ongoing byelection in The Pas.

“They’re not allowed to talk about any of these things, but yes, through several years of meetings and especially the last few months, I think we’ve come to an agreement,” Kynoch said. “We’ve come to understand each other’s needs and goals, and yes, we’ve finally achieved the ability to start rebuilding the infrastructure.”

Malowany said that should new barns be constructed under such a pilot protocol, it would not be at odds with a moratorium on new barn construction.

Manitoba’s Environment Act doesn’t actually make use of the term “moratorium.” However, both the province and the Pork Council have used the term to describe the current regulations around intensive swine operations.

Rather, under the heading of prohibition, the act indicates that permits for new hog barns may be issued by the province if they provide “anaerobic digestion in a manner acceptable to the director, or another environmentally sound treatment that is similar to, or better than, anaerobic digestion and is acceptable to the director” of environmental approvals.

“There’s been no legislative change, the moratorium is still in place,” said regulatory director Tracy Braun. “Basically what the environment act allows is, if somebody can demonstrate through an application process that they can meet the environment requirements, which is zero impact to Lake Winnipeg or other waterways, they can apply for a permit.”

Braun said that she is not aware of anyone having used the secondary clause in the act to apply for a hog barn permit in the past. But she believes that will change.

“I think that this is coming out, that people are now wanting to try and see if they can make a case for an alternative to the anaerobic digestion that will still demonstrate that the overall impacts to the environment are the same,” said the director. “I haven’t received any application for this, so I cannot comment on an application I haven’t received… I’m hoping we’ll get applications some time in the next six months.”

Braun said applications will be reviewed in the context of net impact to Lake Winnipeg. There will also be a public support component.

Since the adoption of Bill 17 in 2008, just four hog barns have been built in the province. According to the Manitoba Pork Council, that has resulted in an overall drop in pork production.

A shortage of pigs forced Maple Leaf Food’s Brandon processing plant to enact “non-production” days in recent months. Company president and CEO Michael McCain was in Winnipeg last week and told council members it would take 175 new barns to balance production in the province.

Kynoch pointed out that while he believes that construction on new barns will begin in the coming years, the government has not relinquished its control over expansion.

“The whole thing has been politics right from the start… and that’s been our challenge, it hasn’t been based on facts,” he said. “I think if we’d had a lot less misconceptions from the start, this would have been resolved a lot sooner, but I think we’ve finally got to a point I think government is comfortable with what the hog industry is doing and is prepared to do, and that’s why we’ve been allowed to have more options.”

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Speaking to reporters at a Keystone Agricultural Producers meeting in Winnipeg last month, Ron Kostyshyn said that alternative technologies could replace the anaerobic digesters now required for new barns in some phosphorus-deficient areas of the province.

That possibility was confirmed last week by Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council.

“Currently, in the legislation… anaerobic digesters are a requirement for new barn development, but I think they’re prepared to accept the concept of multi-cell systems as an alternative method of dealing with the nutrient load in manure,” said Dickson, speaking at the annual Manitoba Swine Seminar.

However, use of multi-cell systems would be limited to geographic areas with low phosphorus concentrations. Kostyshyn characterized these areas as being outside the “nucleus” of existing intensive livestock operations.

“They want them in some proximity with the processing plants in the province,” Dickson explained. “In the geographic sense that is probably western Manitoba, but it’s a little vague. So I’m starting by defining that as west of the Red River.”

Kostyshyn said new hog barns using the multi-cell system will have to be pre-approved as pilot projects if the plan moves ahead. Although what that process will look like and how many of these multi-cell manure-treatment installations might be allowed has not yet been determined.

“There’s a lot of details to be sorted out, we’re not sure how many sites we might be able to get going, but it’s going to be more than one,” Dickson said. “We’re going to be looking for co-operative municipalities, we’re going to be looking for producers who are prepared to invest in these barns and I think there’s going to have to be some relationship between these barns and the processing capacity in the province.”

Kostyshyn also cited increasing the number of hogs available to processors as part of the rationale for the departure from the province’s stance on anaerobic digesters.

“It’s a start, but there is a very significant shortfall in our finished pig capacity in the province,” said Dickson. “We just don’t have enough barns to provide enough finished pigs to the processing plants so they can be as efficient as their U.S. counterparts.”

He added it would take a considerable number of new barns to produce the number of hogs processors are looking for. Whether a pilot program could deliver enough additional hogs remains to be seen, Dickson said.

He noted that all major federal processors have also been involved in discussions around the pilot project proposal.

“We keep improving on the regulations, in partnership with Manitoba Pork, and I think we’ve come to a consensus that we’re addressing the one situation from both sides,” said Kostyshyn, noting Manitoba still has the highest level of environmental regulation of any province when it comes to hog production.

Manitoba Pork has opposed the anaerobic digester requirement since it was introduced, citing installation costs of up to $1 million.

Dickson said the move by the province is a step in the right direction, albeit a small one.

“There is still a very long ways to go,” he said, adding this change by no means marks the end of the moratorium.

Kostyshyn stressed that discussions will continue.

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Reacting to a letter from Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh and published in the Manitoba Co-operator, council chairman Karl Kynoch said he was extremely disappointed by the minister’s position on hog barn expansion and alternative manure-handling technologies.

“Gord Mackintosh completely drop kicked the industry when he released that letter,” Kynoch said. “What this boils down to is strictly elections, there’s an election coming up in a year and a half, the government is in the bottom of the poll… it’s all about politics and it’s not about doing the right thing for business.”

In the letter, Mackintosh indicates the government will stand firm on commitments made in the Save Lake Winnipeg Act and will not “allow unrestricted province-wide hog production in Manitoba at the expense of the environment.”

Pork producers don’t want to damage the environment either, said Kynoch. What they want are alternatives to the current requirement that new hog barns be accompanied by anaerobic digesters — something the council has said is too expensive and too ineffective.

• Cold weather isn’t an obstacle to anaerobic digesters in Manitoba

They also want to see an increase in hog production as porcine epidemic diarrhea and other factors reduce hog supplies. Recently, the Maple Leaf hog-processing plant in Brandon instituted “non-production days” to cope with the shortage.

• Hog shortage forces ‘non-production’ days at Maple Leaf

Increased production will require new barns, said Kynoch.

The minister didn’t rule out alternative manure technologies for new barns. Rather, he wrote that “any pilot project proposal coming forward from the hog industry to the province must demonstrate zero negative impact on water quality and include effective odour control measures.”

“There is no such thing as a zero impact. What does zero impact mean?” asked Kynoch. “Basically what they wanted was zero impact on their election.”

The pork council had been working with the province on an alternative manure-handling system composed of a series of lagoons or holding cells, he said, noting he believed they were in agreement on how to move forward.

“We had worked with government for a number of years here to come to an agreement… we had agreements on ways to move forward with manure application and handling of manure lagoons that was achieving the government’s goal and allowing industry to again replace some of the hogs that are missing,” he said.

The pork council will now review its options and decide if it’s financially prudent to continue researching digester alternatives. Kynoch added that he doesn’t believe any technology they put forward will be accepted by the province, regardless of the science behind it.

“For some reason — I don’t know why — but this government seems to have a hatred on for family farms,” he said.

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“If you insulate it properly and it’s heated, there shouldn’t be any obstacles to having this technology,” PhD candidate Elsie Jordaan said during a presentation sponsored by the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment.

Just how much insulation is needed is still being debated, but Alberta and Saskatchewan have anaerobic digesters in operation despite similar climatic challenges, said Jordaan.

Manitoba Hydro is working with Natural Resources Canada and the University of Manitoba to develop and install a comprehensive anaerobic digester system at Sweetridge Farms near Winkler.

The operators of the large dairy farm are looking to improve the quality of the manure, as well as generate animal bedding through the process, said Jordaan. Fifty kilowatts of electricity and heat will also be generated from the manure on site.

The project, due to be completed this fall, has encountered some bumps along the way, as have the Ontario-based company that has undertaken the project. But those setbacks haven’t been climate related.

“I think a lot of it has just been that the company’s learning curve for doing this kind of project in Manitoba has been very steep,” said Jordan Langner, a renewable energy engineer with Manitoba Hydro.

The Sweetridge project will not only prove anaerobic digesters are feasible in Manitoba, but make it easier for future digester projects to get off the ground, said Langner.

“There’s a lot of things about Manitoba that make our situation different, climate is one, but also our manure management regulations are something that is unique here,” he said.

Aside from technology, Jordaan said costs associated with building digesters may also be a deterrent for some people.

The digester near Winkler will cost about $750,000 to build, but Langner said some of the research aspects of the project have increased construction costs.

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The market allows them to earn more by selling directly to customers, and the slaughterhouse produces a higher quality of meat with some veterinary oversight.

The slaughterhouse doesn’t sell meat, but its services to small butchers and restaurants that buy live animals at the market. Kenya is a “warm meat” market, so what is slaughtered in the morning is sold and served that evening. Thirty per cent of the meat eaten in Nairobi comes from the plant in Kiserian.

“A vibrant livestock trade maintains this town,” says Michael Kibue, manager of the project. “Over two hundred thousand traditional Maasai families depend on this market.”

The success of the slaughterhouse means a huge amount of waste, which until 2005 was poured down the side of a hill into a nearby river. Then the association installed two anaerobic digesters and used the biogas to generate electricity for the plant. There was a surplus, so biogas was piped to seven hotels in the area for cooking fuel. But there’s still an excess, so now the goal is to sell to local families.

“The vision is to package biogas for the poor,” says Kibue. “Biogas is a good source of energy, it burns clean and is low cost.”

Charcoal is the most common source of cooking fuel in Kenya, but it causes air pollution, respiratory issues, deforestation and drudgery for the women who walk long distances to collect it. The Keekonyokie group worked with a local manufacturer to develop canisters, developed its own process for compressing the gas, and is now seeking the necessary government approvals to commercialize its system.

“If the packaging works, it will be a first for Kenya,” says Kibue. “Biogas will generate more money than the slaughterhouse.”

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