Legislative Limelight
Hearings going on over CAFO’s. Check the extensive coverage at the Muncie Free Press. but also note the following in Hoosier Ag*:
Two separate hearings in the past two weeks have focused on Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Last week a 3 hour hearing was held before the State Senate Environmental Committee and this week one was held before the House Agriculture Committee. On Tuesday a hearing was held on legislation co-authored by Rep. Phillip Pflum, the panel‘s chairman, that would prohibit large livestock farms within 2 miles of schools, cities and towns. Pflum, D-Milton, said his legislation is a “compromise bill” that aims to address rural residents‘ concerns about the farms‘ odors, dust, and manure runoff while still permitting the continued growth of the state‘s livestock industry. “It‘s a bill I think we may be able to get passed. Would I like to go further than this, personally, yes. But this whole process is a compromise,” he said after Tuesday‘s hearing.
More than a dozen witnesses testified including Director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture Andy Miller. , He said the agency opposes Pflum‘s bill, calling it a threat to the state‘s billion-dollar livestock industry. He said Indiana‘s hog and dairy industries grew 8 percent to 10 percent last year in response to consumers‘ growing demand for pork and milk products. He noted the state‘s livestock farms take great steps to protect the environment from damage from the animal waste the farms generate. “Today‘s animal agriculture is the safest for the environment and the most heavily regulated in history,” he said. “Modern agriculture operates with the utmost care of our state‘s resources.”
Link.
The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel has some opinions on the competing bills in the Indiana Legislature regarding CAFO’s:
Few say there aren’t problems attending these farms, including strong odors, noise, traffic, dust and a much greater risk of environmental contamination. But they provide good livings and, in some cases, a significant number of jobs.
Link.
*Whoops: Substantial edit due to incorrect injection of legislative info from another state (Idaho). Sorry for the mistake.
February 9th, 2007 11:30
Clearly Andy Miller needs to listen! at the senate hearing on the propesed bills the head of idem testified that they try to get to the states cafos at least once every 6 years.That doesnt sound like a GREAT STEP to protect the enviroment to me! By the way 45 percent of our pork goes to JAPAN !
February 9th, 2007 13:51
“Today‘s animal agriculture is the safest for the environment and the most heavily regulated in history,” he said. “Modern agriculture operates with the utmost care of our state‘s resources.” Is he serious? Take a look through the IDEM compliance database over the past two years, and see how many of the violations are from CAFOs and CFOs - and how many of them are spills of manure to surface waters that they failed to report. How many instances such as these have gone undiscovered?
“..utmost care..”? I think not.
February 22nd, 2007 00:51
What Andy Miller say’s,
“The agency opposes Pflum‘s bill, calling it a threat to the state‘s billion-dollar livestock industry. He said Indiana‘s hog and dairy industries grew 8 percent to 10 percent last year in response to consumers‘ growing demand for pork and milk products. He noted the state‘s livestock farms take great steps to protect the environment from damage from the animal waste the farms generate. “Today‘s animal agriculture is the safest for the environment and the most heavily regulated in history,” he said. “Modern agriculture operates with the utmost care of our state‘s resources.”
Did ANYONE ELSE out there hear absolutely ANYTHING about the “HUMAN” issues here? Andy speaks of how safe these farms are to the environment and Oh Boy , “Indiana‘s hog and dairy industries grew 8 percent to 10 percent last year” See, it always ends up with “money”. Let’s not mention airborne allergies, Crohns disease, and other diseases and illnesses that family’s will be living with after the so called “safe” farming techniques are put in effect. If Andy is opposed to the possible threat of Indiana’s billion-dollar livestock industry, Then he surely must be “In Favor of” the threat to Indiana’s MOST important commodity of all… “Human life” and the process of eliminating All forms of it in rural communities! There will be MANY ghost towns in Indiana, Andy. You and your boys should have plenty of avaliable land in the next 5 years. Maybe you can turn Indiana into, “Disneyana” and build a 350 sq. mile amusement park where the citizens used to live. That’s ok, dry us up and move us out to Illinois or some other state. Where will all of these large CAFO’s get their multimillion dollar subsidies from then? Let the politicians that have traded human life for money pay for their Big Ag buddies from their own pockets. Keep it in the family, sound good to you?