The Iowa Corn Growers Association is questioning the true purpose of the Waterkeeper Alliance’s national “Hog Summit” being held in Clear Lake today. The Alliance says it’s concerned that large factory hog farms will take over and push family farms out of Iowa. Corn Growers Association former President Ron Litterer says they have concerns about the Waterkeeper Alliance’s real agenda. He says the group members are “big money lawyers coming out from the East Coast. We thing they want to destroy agriculture as we know it.” The Waterkeeper Alliance says they are trying to protect the family farmer but Litterer says that’s not entirely true. He says family farmers fit the definition of confinement operators with livestock, so he says if they’re out to destroy confinements, they out to destroy family farmers. Litterer says the group wants to take Iowa back to the small farms of 1918.He says those are called “fairytale farms” because there’s no economic reality to have such a farm and still make a living. The second Annual Hog Summit will conclude this evening with a speech from Waterkeeper Alliance President, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which is free and open to the public.
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