Letters: Winds of change turn against pork industry

The Manitoba Co-Operator - by Vicki Burns

Manitoba hog producers would do well to pay very careful attention to California’s Prop 12 and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding it. Story here.

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Manitoba, federal governments pledge nearly $3M for study on sustainable aviation fuel facility.

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Azure Sustainable Fuels Corporation's processing facility planned for near Portage la Prairie, Man.

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Increased risk of extreme rainfall due to warming

Journal: Nature Climate warming is causing a decrease in snowfall and increase in rainfall at high altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and is predicted to increase the risk of extreme rainfall, suggests a study published in Nature.  The intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events is expected to increase as global warming continues to affect the planet. Of particular concern are extremes in rainfall, which often cause more damage than similar snowfall events due to their instantaneous runoff, increasing the risk of floods, which can cause infrastructure damage and landslides. Precisely how increases in global temperature will affect extreme rainfall events remains unclear.  To assess how climate change might be driving a shift in precipitation patterns, Mohammed Ombadi and colleagues combined data from climate observations from between 1950 and 2019 with future projections, up to 2100, taken from Earth system models. Their results suggest that warming is causing an increase in rainfall extremes within regions of high elevation in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in regions usually dominated by snowfall. On average, the intensity of extreme rainfall events is estimated to increase by 15% per 1 °C of warming. These patterns are seen both in the historical observations and future projections. The estimated rate of increased rainfall in high altitudes is approximately double that of low altitudes, highlighting the increased vulnerability of mountainous regions to extreme precipitation.   These results may guide infrastructure and mitigation strategies to avert the damage such rainfall events could cause, as well as making predictions of their occurrence more precise, the authors conclude.

Manitobans deserve transparency, not unsubstantiated environmental claims from their pork sector.

Hog Watch Manitoba - June 23rd, 2023.

    Hog Watch Manitoba, a non-profit, advocacy group, says it believes a recent claim by Manitoba Pork about how much water it is using, needs more proof.     

    In a newspaper ad, the industry organization declares, “Hog farms today require 40% less water per kilogram of pork produced, compared to fifty years ago.”   

    Larry Powell of Hog Watch says this doesn’t tell the whole story. 

    "Even if consumption per unit has gone down, what does it matter when that figure is surely being eclipsed by rising animal numbers? There are well over three times as many pigs on Manitoba farms now as there were half-a-century ago. 

    "Not only that, the use of slurry, which has been spread on vast farm fields in this province for decades, is more than 80% water. It's been on the increase since the nineties. 

    "A University of Manitoba study concluded that pigs produced 346 thousand tonnes of dry manure in 2007 alone. Since the spreading of slurry was a common and growing practise, even back then, it must surely have added up to a staggering total.

An industry photo.

    "Besides, research by the industry itself shows finisher pigs can waste up to 25% of the water they use, even from 'well-managed' nipple-drinkers."

    Powell adds, there's good reason the public deserves full disclosure on this vital issue. 

    "Experts have long been warning, 'As climate change tightens its grip, multi-year droughts are taking a severe toll, especially on cattle and grain producers. With drought and heatwaves becoming a worsening problem on the semi-arid Canadian prairies, competition for a diminishing supply of water will become a major problem in the future. And excess use of water by this industry may be a threat to both local and regional water sources.'

    "So if Manitoba Pork wants to be seen as a good corporate citizen, the people of this province need more assurance than this, that our finite supply of freshwater can sustain it, indefinitely into the future."

                                                

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    Hog Watch Manitoba is a non-profit organization, a coalition of environmentalists, farmers, friends of animals, social justice advocates, scientists and concerned citizens. We are promoting a hog industry in Manitoba that is ethically, environmentally, and economically sustainable. 

    Data for this statement comes from Statistics Canada, Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and the MB Clean Environment Commission.

Manitoba's beautiful Duck Mountain under threat from logging

 

Please read this related article from more than a decade ago.