Meeting will discuss proposed Stuart hog farm

The man who proposes building a hog farm near Stuart will meet face-to-face tonight with local residents who oppose the project. Barb Kalbach is an Adair County farmer who doesn’t want developer Gary Weihs to build a 55-hundred-hog operation, and she’ll be at tonight’s meeting in Greenfield. She objects to hog confinements in general, saying they’re a poor way to raise livestock and bring economic development. Kalbach is a grain farmer, and says a small livestock operation is nothing like the “factory farms” people are worried about.She says large-scale operations jeopardize water and air quality, and the ventilation fans spread disease from the barns. Kalbach says people are getting concerned about the number of giant livestock operations in the state.She says if it was just one “hog city,” it would be different, but she anticipates many others will follow in the same area. Kalbach says just the idea of a confinement facility with more than five thousand hogs raises concern among anyone who might live near the chosen site.She says they wouldn’t have a voice in objecting to the flies, smell, carcasses and manure polluting the region. The meeting’s tonight at seven at the Nodaway Valley High School building in Greenfield. Weihs says he’ll be a good neighbor and won’t build a manure lagoon. Weihs says he’s gotten support from folks in the area, too.