This letter is in response to the June 3 letter by Sarah Cunniff titled “Hog farms harm animals, humans.”

My calculations show a single concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) can house 5 millions hogs (100 pigs/pen 2500 pens/barn 20 barns/factory), according to Sarah, swine expert. Impressive, considering there are only 15 – 17 million hogs in Iowa. If you placed these market weight hogs from her “farm” end to end they would stretch the distance of Los Angeles to New York and back! If 5 million pigs were on one farm, regardless of how many buildings, they would need at least 33.75 million square feet, if they were standing side to side, head to tail, and not allowed movement. According to her article, three-fourths of the pigs are raised on large farms; however, 68.2 percent of all hogs are produced from farms that annually market about 1,000 pigs,

Oh the stench of her argument! Does feces from any animal smell good? Studies of air quality outside of hog confinements show that 200 feet from the building, the levels of ammonia and methane are not hazardous.

Marketing of hogs has an essential role in this country. It provides farmers with business, and many human health solutions have come from swine research.

Organic farmers can’t supply enough pigs needed to sustain the demand for pork. Swine that go to market are not pet quality, and may even get treated better than some pets; they’re certainly more regulated. Perhaps in your schooling you will realize that without the large population of hogs, you wouldn’t be going to Iowa State. Try taking AnS 114 to learn more about the factual side of swine confinements.

In conclusion, your proposal isn’t only expensive, but illogical. I’m not condoning huge confinements, that’s not the issue, but small or large production certainly isn’t how Sarah portrayed it.

Raye Taylor

Senior

Zoology

Rydell Schott

Senior

Animal Science