By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The ongoing discussion between agricultural traditions and environmental concerns recently picked up in an unlikely venue. The Indiana Historical Society hosted a panel of food producers and a representative of the Hoosier Environmental Council at its final Indiana Town Hall series, “Rural Environment,” on Dec. 16 at the Indiana History Center.
Moderator for the evening was Phil Anderson, former head of the Indiana Beef Cattle Assoc. and other rural organizations, and now CEO of ReThink LLC. In his opening presentation, Anderson provided his mostly urban audience with these agricultural statistics:

•The Central United States, and Indiana in particular, has some of the most productive farmland in the world.

•There is a higher non-farming rural population than ever before.

•There are fewer middle markets locally and globally relating to farming and businesses.

•By 2050, the United Nations predicts agriculture will have to produce 70 percent more food to feed an additional 2.3 billion people on the same amount of land.

The increase in the non-farm rural population has contributed in large part to grievances against farmers, most of whom are compliant with state and federal environmental regulations, Anderson said. New residents in rural areas are often offended by traditional agricultural practices such as manure application and slow-moving equipment on roadsides.

“If you go into a city, you expect businesses. If you go into a subdivision, you expect houses. If you go into the rural areas, you have to expect agriculture,” he said.

Panelist Angela Hamm agreed, but felt agriculture must do more to prevent spills in waterways, and other environmentally unsafe practices. She is the water policy director of the Hoosier Environment Council and a former environmental lawyer.

“Animal waste in water is not just a food contaminant,” she said. “Antibiotics (in waste) can cause antibiotic resistance in humans.”

She also cited arsenic found in chicken manure and pathogens such as E. coli from animals in waterways. Hamm said there needs to be more transparency and availability in farm records, and takes issue with the fact that agriculture is not as accountable as other industries.

“The law doesn’t require financial assurance for the agriculture industry for contamination cleanup like it does for other industries like coal,” she said.
Panelists Malcolm DeKryger, vice president of Belstra Milling, and Dave Fischer, owner of Fischer Farms Natural Foods LLC, presented their views as farmers.
Belstra is an agricultural business that has grown from producing more than 38,000 tons of mixed feed, 500 sows and 12,000 pigs to its present production of 11,500 sows and 310,000 pigs on 10 farms in northern Indiana.

Transparency is one of the company’s goals in trying to help urban consumers understand what is necessary to put food on a global table. The company hosts legislators, educators and consumers for tours in its farrowing and birthing barn, where windows allow visitors to see what’s going on in different life stages.

“People can come, see and be able to smell and read what happens on our farms,” DeKryger said. “Most consumers come away from our farm saying, ‘Gee whiz, I had no idea it was like this.’ The typical farmer loves to show you what he does.”

He also described the sustainability of the operation. “In our world, you feed corn to pigs, pigs grow, you use the manure in a lagoon system, put it back on the ground to raise corn and feed that back to the pigs,” he said. “I define that as sustainable.”

Fischer’s farm focuses on supplying Indiana restaurants with natural beef and pork. He raises cattle on pasture and promotes good health through probiotics rather than antibiotics.

On environmental issues, he believes the problem with regulations is that there is not enough staff on either side of the fence. Farmers cannot afford the time or an additional employee to deal with the paperwork, and environmental agencies do not have the staff to adequately monitor every situation.
“I come back to the transparency issue,” he said. “That (farmer) does not want to deal with the risks to their reputation that a violation can create.”

DeKryger said the disconnect between consumers and their food source can only be addressed by education of how the agriculture industry must operate to meet demand for healthy food.

“You as a public have to trust someone to make your food, just like I have to trust someone to fix my car,” he said.