We're in a very competitive business, and we compete not only with other hog farmers, we compete with poultry, beef, and dairy for their employees and for their inputs, and to single us out is just unacceptable. In the last two years, twelve states have decided to regulate confined animal operations and seven of them have swine-specific rules. Recently, the Clinton administration said they would like a national strategy to deal with confined animal waste in place by the year 2008. Whatever the outcome, the whole argument is splitting agricultural counties like Yuma. In the past, new environmental regulations have been anathema in rural America.
Towns hard hit by low crop prices often welcome the jobs a hog farm brings in.
Our housing has boomed. I worry about the quality of water and our air quality. I don't want it to get polluted. We make our living out here, and we want to raise our kids here, and we'd like to keep it as simple as it is. Ironically, pork producers say they agree with neighbors that a need for regulation exists, but they fear the growing patchwork of state laws.