IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 7
Practical Farmers of Iowa works closely with Iowa State University's
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture to conduct and report on onfarm
research using sustainable animal production methods.
The Research and Demonstration Farms division of the Department of
Animal Science at Iowa State University has demonstrated alternative
swine production methods, such as the Swedish deep-bedded group
housing systems, pasture production methods and hoop houses, and made
the results available to farmers. Animal Welfare Institute and the
American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals helped organize
tours of farms using deep-bedded group housing systems in Sweden for
farmers and Iowa State University faculty and personnel so they could talk
with Swedish farmers and see their systems in operation.
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy organized a U.S. farmers' tour of
European sustainable farms, farmers' cooperatives, and alternative and
organic markets to bring home to the U.S. ideas and inspiration for
organizing similar ventures here.
In 1997, Land Stewardship Project (LSP) lobbied the state legislature and
worked with sympathetic legislators to pass a bill authorizing $125,000 for
research and promotion of alternative hog farming methods, such as the
Swedish deep-bedded systems, pasture farrowing, rotational grazing for
hogs, and systems compatible with low-cost hoop buildings. This initiative
led to the formation of an Alternative Swine System Task Force and
Program at the University of Minnesota, overseen by MISA and the
Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program of the Minnesota Department
of Agriculture.
Organic Farming Research Foundation sponsors research and acts as an
organic advocacy group, disseminating information on organic farming
practices and research results to farmers, supporting a grower-based
knowledge system for organic methods, and advocating increased federal
funding for organic farming research.
The effort to develop humane, sustainable, alternative forms of animal
farming must go hand in hand with efforts to end animal production that is
exploitive of people, animals, and future generations and wasteful with
respect to THE care and use of natural resources. Without viable and
preferable alternatives, an old paradigm will not be displaced.
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