Cyndi's Two Cents
Smell that money!
Commentary.
“Smell that money!”
When I was growing up, the kids on my school bus used to repeat that statement every time we rode by Wendy Freeman’s cattle feedlot. With windows open, we’d drink in the smell of manure and grin from ear to ear. None of us at that point in our youth had heard the phrase, “A rising tide carries all boats” but we were all cheering for Wendy.
This memory crossed my mind the other day as I listened to a news report about a farmer’s plan to sell his land to another farmer from out of state who plans to put in a large sow operation – a CAFO – on that property. The people in the community, including livestock and row crop farmers whose homes are within 2,000 feet of the proposed operation, are not grinning. As a matter of fact, they are not a bit happy about it. The consensus is that they don’t want the odor of 10,000 sows that close to their homes.
I’m not writing about this today to take a stand on either side. I’m disappointed that there are “sides.” I wish the farmer from out of state would have made an effort to reach out to his new neighbors (especially those within 2,000 feet) instead of having the adjacent landowners finding out about it when they received notice of where the new facility is proposed to be placed and where the waste will be applied.
It is disappointing to learn how some of the local farmers began to raise a stink about the proposed farm before they knew anything at all about it. There is nothing more troubling to me than seeing farmers pitted against farmers.
Another memory came to mind as I thought about this situation: a week spent in Lancaster County, Penn., known for its Amish population.
Lancaster County is that state’s number one tourist destination as well as its number one livestock producer. Jim and I honeymooned in Lancaster County in 2003. We visited museums, went sightseeing, did some furniture shopping and enjoyed the local cuisine. Stepping out of a tourist-packed local shop where Jim had discovered a great dislike for the Pennsylvania Dutch treat shoofly pie, the odor of dairy, swine, equine and beef cattle manure wafted through the air along with the smell of wood smoke and tourist-car exhaust.
Cars with New York, North and South Carolina and Massachusetts license plates filled the parking areas outside the Amish general store and across the street from the bed & breakfasts. Families carrying large painted hex signs and hand-made quilts strolled along the cobblestone street, smiling at one another, happy with their purchases.
Although there are more than 63 CAFOs in the county, the odor of livestock production did not faze the tourists with whom we crossed paths those days we spent in the tourist hotspot that attracts more than 10 million tourists a year. How can Lancaster County, Pennsylvania make this happen? The farmers, business people, city and county governments, and residents decided to work together and believed the marriage of farming and tourism was a good union economically, for the community.
Back in the Midwest, I have yet to hear one person talk about the positive impact the 25 jobs created by the proposed sow operation will have on the community. No one seems to care if the farm will smell like money. They just know that it will smell.
Tags: commentary
Amen. Confinements have come a long way since you were a kid on the bus 🙂 and for that we are all happy but after living the farm life these many years I know there are times there will be a ‘stink’. Do we blame Mother Nature? I think not.