To subscribe to Agweek, click here. Although a proposed pork processing plant near Great Bend has yet to be built, Seaboard Farms has been steadily contracting with Kansas farmers to raise pigs for it. At stake, industry observers say, is a determination by the corporate hog giant on whether Kansas farmers can raise the 2 million to 6 million additional hogs needed each year to supply the proposed plant, which would double the number of hogs raised in the state.
Timing is critical.
Spurred by numerous complaints, state environmental regulators plan to have public hearings this week on three proposed large-scale hog farms in western Kansas counties. Seaboard officials didn't return calls Nov. 29 for comment. The company, which has had 42 large-scale hog growing operations in southwestern Kansas since 1994, will need between 200 and 400 more hog farms for the Great Bend project to be feasible, Carter said. So far, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has received at least 20 permit applications for large-scale hog operations from farmers contracting with Seaboard in Kansas. Most of them are in Wallace, Greeley, Kearny, Wichita and Scott counties.