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In my opinion, the tree huggers & anti-farming groups have brought this type of operation upon the world much faster than would have naturally happened. I do remember when my small town had 2 'big' grocery stores and 5 corner grociries that were the size of my kitchen. Today there are 2 grociery stores over 100,000 sqft each. There is a Target & a Kmart & a preposed Walmart. Not many other stores in town. Our ecconomy is designed to reward large companies that work on an ecconomy of scale. Farming is no different. Add the regulations, zoning, & red tape that the tree huggers have added, and the small farms cannot compete. I read in today's paper a new hog barn was required to put some sort of 'scrubbers' on thier hog barn. At a cost of $25,000. A small hog opertaion will be required to meat the same standards. How do you prepose to pay for $25,000 of equipment with, say, 200 hogs????? And so on. Exsisting hog barns are grandfathered into such red tape. Hower, when the owner dies or sells, the son or new owner needs to meet the new laws. The only option is to shut down, or put up a 4,000 or bigger new barn. Laws do not allow any in between any more. How will not allowing the sow operation affect you? Dairies are dying here in Minnesota. The Fed milk regulations are making sure of that. Where will all the farmers go? What will they do? Where will the grain get used that is produced here? Depress gain prices by not allowing livestock operations, and then all the farmers - livestock & grain - will be gone. What do you have left where you live? I know that does not help if you are 1/2 mile downwind of a large hog operation, and I do not mean to belittle your concerns. But, where do we turn, what do we do? Just something to think on. --->Paul
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