Hog farmer Mike Smolek walks among the sows in a gestation barn at the Smolek family farm in northeast White County. 'No bankers will loan money unless the animal operation fits their system, and the meatpackers want the product to fit their system. We're basically a piece of the puzzle,' / John Terhune/J&C
Confined feeding is the raising of animals for food, fur or recreation in lots, pens, ponds, sheds or buildings, where they are confined, fed and maintained for at least 45 days during any year, and where there is no ground cover or vegetation present over at least half of the animals’ confinement area.
The terms CFO and CAFO relate to the number of animals.
In Indiana, a CFO is a confined animal feeding operation with 300 or more cattle, 600 or more swine or sheep, 30,000 or more poultry, or 500 horses in confinement.
A concentrated animal feeding operation is a CFO that meets the threshold numbers set by the federal government. For swine those thresholds are 2,500 swine of 55 pounds or heavier, or 10,000 swine if less than 55 pounds.
Source: Indiana Department of Environmental Management
The pigs are coming. That much is almost certain.
More than 9,000 of them, packed together in a huge warehouse in White County, pumping out as much bodily waste each year as the entire human population of Greater Lafayette.
What no one yet knows is just how bad they will smell, how much runoff they may produce and how neighboring property owners will be affected.
If the best hopes of John Erickson, the farmer who is building the facility, and state and local regulators and pork industry officials are realized, the impacts will be minimal, and worth the benefits to society at large in terms of lower pork prices at the supermarket.
But if the worst fears of some environmentalists and industry experts come to pass, neighbors such as Camp Tecumseh, David Krause and Janet Rose could see their enjoyment of their properties overwhelmed by the stink and the mess.
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