Livestock manure: a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet...
Dan Brawner
December 04, 2007
It’s a losing battle. 10,000 Iowa farms with livestock and 5,000 major livestock producing farms are all busy making something besides prime rib. If you live next door to one of these places, it’s not going to smell like roses. Sorry. That’s life. And even $23 million won’t make it go away.
Iowa agricultural and environmental officials have come up with a plan to reduce the smell of manure across the state. The proposed $23 million project would utilize changes in livestock diet as well as high tech solutions such as ultraviolet radiation and air scrubbers. Money for the state-wide stink reduction would come out of taxpayers’ pockets.
Already suffering with high gas (the other kind) prices, a housing crisis and the threat of economic recession hanging over our heads, it may be tough to stir up much enthusiasm over a stink tax. Plus, as Sen. Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, points out, “We could spend $500 million and we’d still have complaints.”
So true. The $23 million project might reduce neighborhood manure smells enough to satisfy some people. But there will always be those delicate, sensitive individuals who are offended by any natural, animal smells, including their own. You know the who I’m talking about–their bathrooms are so full of potpourri, they smell like a bowl of Christmas punch. From every electrical outlet, “air fresheners” spew synthetic floral aromas throughout the house and their dryer exhausts belch the sharp tang of fabric softener, overpowering the scent of any real flowers and interfering with the mating habits of pollinating insects for miles around.
No reduction in livestock smells will satisfy everybody or put an end to the law suits and protests and articles about the health risks and loss of property values. If the proposal is enacted, Iowans will helplessly watch as our $23 million circles the bowl. But fortunately if there is one thing our legislators are good at, it’s managing manure.
What if they took that money and, instead of making Iowa smell a little bit better, used it to convince us that manure smells good? After all, many of us come from farming families or have friends who are farmers or have watched Little House on the Prairie. There is still a romance about the mythic family farm with its red barns and golden waves of grain, and, well, chickens, cows and pigs. Of course, back in those days, the animals weren’t given genetically modified, indigestible feed, pumped full of antibiotics and crowded into a small, confined space without sanitary conditions like London in the Middle Ages.
But with the proper advertising, we could come to love the smell of manure. It would be a status symbol to live next to a factory hog farm. We would actually feel sorry for our city friends who are so removed from Nature. The smell would still be there, of course. But we’d be happy. And that’s the main thing.
Iowa agricultural and environmental officials have come up with a plan to reduce the smell of manure across the state. The proposed $23 million project would utilize changes in livestock diet as well as high tech solutions such as ultraviolet radiation and air scrubbers. Money for the state-wide stink reduction would come out of taxpayers’ pockets.
Already suffering with high gas (the other kind) prices, a housing crisis and the threat of economic recession hanging over our heads, it may be tough to stir up much enthusiasm over a stink tax. Plus, as Sen. Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, points out, “We could spend $500 million and we’d still have complaints.”
So true. The $23 million project might reduce neighborhood manure smells enough to satisfy some people. But there will always be those delicate, sensitive individuals who are offended by any natural, animal smells, including their own. You know the who I’m talking about–their bathrooms are so full of potpourri, they smell like a bowl of Christmas punch. From every electrical outlet, “air fresheners” spew synthetic floral aromas throughout the house and their dryer exhausts belch the sharp tang of fabric softener, overpowering the scent of any real flowers and interfering with the mating habits of pollinating insects for miles around.
No reduction in livestock smells will satisfy everybody or put an end to the law suits and protests and articles about the health risks and loss of property values. If the proposal is enacted, Iowans will helplessly watch as our $23 million circles the bowl. But fortunately if there is one thing our legislators are good at, it’s managing manure.
What if they took that money and, instead of making Iowa smell a little bit better, used it to convince us that manure smells good? After all, many of us come from farming families or have friends who are farmers or have watched Little House on the Prairie. There is still a romance about the mythic family farm with its red barns and golden waves of grain, and, well, chickens, cows and pigs. Of course, back in those days, the animals weren’t given genetically modified, indigestible feed, pumped full of antibiotics and crowded into a small, confined space without sanitary conditions like London in the Middle Ages.
But with the proper advertising, we could come to love the smell of manure. It would be a status symbol to live next to a factory hog farm. We would actually feel sorry for our city friends who are so removed from Nature. The smell would still be there, of course. But we’d be happy. And that’s the main thing.
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