VALPARAISO, Ind. — A northern Indiana couple now raising grain wants to branch into hog farming to provide opportunity for their son once he graduates with a degree in agriculture.

Robert and Tammy Sands must first receive approval from the Porter County Plan Commission, which is scheduled to hear the request May 27 at 5:30 p.m. The Sands are seeking to have 40 acres rezoned from General Agriculture to High Impact for a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) housing 5,600 hogs at 181 S. Smoke Road in Morgan Township, a few miles south of Valparaiso.

According to the application for rezoning, the couple want to construct a confined feeding operation that would have two buildings containing hogs from wean to finish. The buildings would have underground concrete manure storage along with mechanical ventilation.

The request has generated enough public outcry for the meeting to be relocated to the Porter County Exposition Center, a facility large enough to host circuses, conventions and other large events. "We’re expecting a lot of people," said Bob Thompson, executive director of the Porter County Plan Commission.

Thompson said he’s been receiving mail, email and telephone remonstrance over the proposal. He said the plan commissioner will not decide the matter, but its recommendation will be forwarded to the Porter County commissioners for final action on the rezoning request.

The Sands have many other parcels in the area where they grow strictly crops.

Christopher Hurt, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, said there’s a long history of citizens banding together to keep hog farms out of their area, especially since the early 1990s when much larger operations started becoming more prevalent.

He said protesters, though, should take into account that any hog farm operation must follow guidelines and abide by standards set forth by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, along with some requirements at the federal level. There are also operating restrictions in place at county levels of government.

Hurt said citizens have the authority to report suspected violations to the state, which can go as far as shutting down an operation if actual violations are found. "These are not unregulated operations. This isn’t just the Wild West and anything goes, and you can do anything you want on your land. That just simply is not the case," said Hurt.

The Sands plan on receiving hogs from Bellstra Milling out of DeMotte, which owns the Pig Adventure at Fair Oaks Farms to the west, in Newton County. Hurt said citizens should not be alarmed by such an arrangement because such partnerships are common, and it builds trust whenever a local farmer with a good reputation in the community is contracted to finish raising hogs or other livestock from a provider for market.

One major obstacle any CAFO proposal faces is the amount of opposition in the community, said Hurt. In the Sands case, about 3,500 signatures have been obtained in less than a month on an online petition against the operation, which would be within a short walk from a couple of subdivisions and other homes within a half-mile radius.

A grassroots committee with more than 150 members has also been formed and a lawyer hired to help combat the rezoning request. "We are a farming community, but it’s one thing to live next to a cornfield and another for them to build a 6,000-hog farm next door," said Rebecca Tomerlin, who started the online petition drive.

The Sands, with more than 1,000 total acres, have been in farming for about 20 years and their son, Brandon, is studying agriculture at Ivy Tech in West Lafayette. The couple are looking at a hog farm as a way to provide him with some opportunity. "Why make an entire community suffer for one family’s gain?" said Tomerlin.

Hurt said people have a right to be concerned with any CAFO wanting to locate nearby, but he noted many people benefit from a boost such facilities provide to the local economy and property tax base. "Any operation, any business, any organization that is building is going to create some positives and some negatives. The question is, do the positives outweigh the negatives? That’s a good way to think about it within a community," said Hurt.

Messages left trying to reach the Sands family and their attorney for comment were not returned by press time.