Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry visited a hog confinement yesterday as a backdrop for his call for federal air and water guidelines for large-scale livestock operations that generate millions of gallons of manure. Kerry says when you combine the waste issue and the quality of life issue, there’s a “pretty compelling argument that those large hot lots have got to live up to a higher level of responsibility.” Kerry says those sorts of facilities, without the proper regulatory oversight, wind up destroying people’s lives and property values. Kerry says the feds should help smaller-scale farmers, financially, to meet air and water standards. In addition, Kerry says meatpackers should be barred from owning livestock to help avoid a monopoly in the industry. Kerry says when more than 50 percent of the hogs raised in Iowa are in the hands of two entities, “something’s out of whack.”
SEARCH THIS SITE
RECENT NEWS
- Grassley: Pentagon workers spent millions of pandemic dollars on personal expenses
- After missing Iowa trucker’s body found, wife says: ‘Things don’t add up.’
- Western Iowa Tech to pay millions to students to settle lawsuit
- $18.8 million workforce housing development planned in Spirit Lake
- Body of missing northwest Iowa trucker found