Good Neighbor Policy Pays Off

National Hog Farmer, Volume 42, No. 10, September 15, 1997

Swatara Swine Farms / Jerry Hostetter
Denver, Pennsylvania

When it comes to caring for the environment, Jerry Hostetter is not your average corporate hog manager. A few of his comments:

• "It doesn't matter that we were here first and city folks came later," he says. "As they move in, we have to learn to live with them."
• "I don't want to make money at the expense of other people. I'm not here to see how much money I can make before the neighbors catch up with me."
• "I try to build a relationship with local and state officials. If we have a problem, I want to get them to watch the cleanup process and tell us what they want done. I want them to visit our operations so they know when a problem occurs that it is an accident and we are not deliberately ignoring the regulations."

With these attitudes, it's no surprise that Hostetter's first sow unit, Swatara Swine, was named the winner of this year's Environmental Stewardship Award in the eastern region.

Hostetter is owner of Hostetter Management Company, a pork-producing operation that is non-traditional in its business structure. The company manages around 10,000 sows and produces 200,000 market hogs per year.

Eight sow units produce the pigs. Each sow unit is owned by investors. At the nursery stage, the pigs go to contract growers in the area for finishing.

Hostetter provides the management for each of the sow units and finishers, which includes everything, including hiring all of the personnel.

In setting up a new sow unit, Hostetter first leases (not buys) a suitable farm for 7-8 years. He leases the entire farm, including all buildings, and controls all cropping on the farm. This way he can totally control how, when and where hog manure will be applied to the land.

Good neighbor relations start by finding the right site, Hostetter says. This is important, because in southeast Pennsylvania, there are lots of 80-acre farms and urban families living within a mile of the unit.

Because of the dense rural population, Hostetter uses contract finishing floors located away from the sow unit. "We need to spread animal units around so we can apply manure in a safe manner and keep odors under control," he says.

When he picks a site, Hostetter uses outside consultants to give him an honest, unbiased evaluation. He'll pass on a site where there is strong resistance from neighbors.

The sow unit receiving the Environmental Stewardship Award, Swatara Swine, includes 1,400 sows. It turns out nearly 30,000 hogs a year. Two buildings house the breeding, gestation, farrowing and nursery operations. Finishing occurs on five contract finishing floors.

At the start, Hostetter saw Swatara Swine as his future. He'd managed units for other people and worked for both feed and equipment companies. But he wanted to run a good-sized hog operation of his own.

Ironically, his success at Swatara pushed him out of his dream job. He found himself giving advice to owners and managers of other large units. Eventually, he wound up as the key manager for eight separate sow operations. Finally, he turned day-to-day management at Swatara over to Scott Augsberger. Then he set up Hostetter Management Company, which now has a staff of 10 people. In addition, there are another 30 employees working directly for the sow units.

At Swatara, a pull-plug manure removal system has manure flowing into a one-acre, anaerobic lagoon. The lagoon has some unusual features too:

• Hostetter installed a 60-mil. liner in the lagoon even though the lagoon was built in clay soil, considered a good lining. The liner material is the same used in landfill applications.
• "It cost an extra $30,000," he says. "But that's not much when you spread the cost over the millions of pounds of pork we are producing."
• The lagoon has a heavy-duty fence designed to keep wildlife and people out and prevent the liner from being punctured. Manure is added to the lagoon through underground pipes. All manure is unloaded through another set of underground pipes, so hauling and spreading equipment never gets close to the lagoon.
• A monitoring system was installed before the liner was put in the lagoon. The system consists of a network of perforated tile line buried in the clay soil just below the bottom of the lagoon. A pipeline runs through the wall of the lagoon and emerges in a small wetland a few yards from the lagoon. The pipe has a gate valve.
• At least once a week, the valve is opened to check for manure. To date, only groundwater has flowed out. But should even a tiny leak occur in the lagoon liner, Hostetter will be warned before it becomes a hazard.

Why go to such lengths beyond what regulations require?

These measures provide a safeguard for Hostetter should any groundwater contamination occur in the neighborhood.Their monitoring should clear them of wrongdoing.

Beyond that, the measures also are a safeguard for his own operation. "If we don't have clean water for our hogs, they are not going to perform well," he adds.

Hostetter offers other advice for avoiding confrontations with neighbors. He suggests spending a lot of time listening.

"We cannot spread manure like we did years ago, regardless of whether it's on a holiday or a Saturday, so folks have to smell it all weekend," he says.

Neighbors around Swatara Swine know if they plan a picnic, they can simply call the hog unit manager and manure will not be spread on that day. Hostetter recalls one neighbor who complained because the operator - who started work at 4 a.m. - hauled manure right past her house.

"That sounded like a reasonable request to me, and we got the hauler on a neighbor-friendly schedule," he says.

Another neighbor didn't call Hostetter. He went to the environmental officials, claiming the hog unit was not living up to the permit requirement.

"After they were here four times and saw we were running a very clean operation, they were a bit annoyed with the would-be whistle-blower. (They) said they didn't have time to waste that way," he recalls.

"I'm running a business and I don't want to be shut down by complaints. So I'm looking for ways to work with the people living around our units."

The Pennsylvania producer admits you can't eliminate all odors from a hog unit, but you can work on it. For starters, his hog units are constantly testing and using products to help hold down odor.

Good hog nutrition also plays an important role in preserving environmental quality.

"We have eight herds, each producing 30,000 pigs per year, and they all have a whole herd feed efficiency under 2.8 lb. feed/lb. gain," he says. "Now, compare that with the more typical figure of 3.2 lb. feed/lb. of gain and that's quite a reduction in the number of tons of feed that is passing through the pigs and being hauled out to the field."

With better ration formulations, Hostetter expects conversions to improve even further. The big breakthrough will come in precise matching of rations, genetics and buildings, he says.

"Back in 1981 and 1982, we had a grower ration and a finisher ration," he recalls. "Today we have seven different versions for barrows and seven for gilts. That's 14 different rations we feed."

That's good for feed conversion, but it's also good for the environment. For example, Hostetter now is looking for ways to feed less phosphorus to reduce the amount of phosphate in the manure, thereby avoiding a phosphate buildup in the soil.

The manure management plan for Swatara Swine has been designed by an agronomic consulting service. In addition to the traditional manure and soil samples, plant leaf samples are tested to evaluate nutrient uptake.

The Pennsylvania operator also keeps a close eye on water use at each of those units. He says a 1,400-sow unit will use 9,500 gal. of water per day, which is about the same as a small residential development.

Swatara Swine, and the other units managed by Hostetter, are landscaped to keep the facilities looking good.