Since the Manitoba NDP government placed a moratorium on new hog barns and stopped the expansion of older ones, and the hog industry tanked financially, there’s been virtually no building or even renovating going on.
However, Manitoba Pork is hopeful the first applications for permits to build new or expand existing hog barns under a new pilot project will come in this fall.
In April the Manitoba government approved the “Pig Production Special Pilot Project Evaluation Protocol” under which pork producers can apply to build new or expand existing swine barns.
Mike Teillet, manager of sustainable development programs with Manitoba Pork, told those at this year’s 2015 fall producer meetings, since none, nada barns built in the last six or seven years in Manitoba, production has fallen and the Maple Leaf plant in Brandon, in particular, is short of pigs so it is critical to get those pig numbers back up.
“There was always a long list of regulatory requirements to construct a barn and certainly in to operate a hog farm in Manitoba,” says Teillet. “Under the new protocol, the new pilot project, we agreed to a number of different things in order to allow barns to be built, that’s over and above the existing requirements. They include new soil phosphorus limits of 60 parts per million. It includes manure having to be injected or incorporated within 48 hours and no new barn construction in RM’s of Hanover and La Broquerie. There could be new barn construction and expansion west of the Red River, but east of the Red River, other than those two municipalities, producers can expand but not build new.”
However, Teillet advises anyone interested in building new or expanding existing swine barns to get help from a professional consultant to help them navigate through the approval process because the approval process is so complex
“As a part of the new protocol we’ve agreed, or the government has required us to now become a part of the approval process,” he said. “One of the very first steps that a farmer must do now in order to build a new barn is they have to submit a letter to Manitoba Pork asking us in effect if they meet the terms of the protocol. We will evaluate that proposal and determine whether or not it looks like it meets the criteria of the protocol and then we’ll let the farmer know and then he takes that letter and then moves forward with his approval process. The overall group of approval processes, we estimate will take probably a minimum of six months and could be as long as nine – 10 months or more.”  •
— By Harry Siemens