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16
Better Pork
June 2016
Both Kelly and Jamieson urge farm-
ers to develop a fire plan for emergen-
cies. “That’s of some value in terms of
minimizing losses,” Kelly says. Consult
your local fire departments, they advise.
But Sebringville producer Doug
Ahrens says it’s not only farmers who
need to take
action. Vendors
of electrical
equipment and
fixtures must
do more to
make available
good quality,
inexpensive
equipment
resistant to cor-
rosion.
“Farmers are concerned about what’s
going on and try to do their best. We’re
caught in a price squeeze too, but we’re
made out as the villain,” he says. “But
we’ve got a whole raft of villains over
top of us. If they just pull it all together,
we could put this thing together at a
reasonable price.”
Emergency plan?
John Van Engelen chuckles when he
hears the idea of tying heat sensors
into an alarm system and training the
sensors on fans. There are so many fans.
“And there’s where you’re talking about
a big cost.” Maybe developments such
as nanotechnology will eventually make
that strategy affordable, he says.
Asking if he has an emergency plan
for the barn elicits chuckles too, but
only after a surprised silence. There are
only two of them who work in the barn
full time. Occasionally his daughter
helps out. Everyone can navigate the
facility blindfolded.
Van Engelen eyes Mitchell, seated at
the barn office desk. “Did you do one
when you were at Guelph?”
“No,” Mitchell admits. “I know
there’s supposed to be one.”
If there’s an emergency in the barn,
says the older Van Engelen, “we’d just
call 911.” If it’s a small fire, they’d try
to handle it first on their own with fire
extinguishers. They’ve used extinguish-
ers before (to tackle combine fires). But
if it’s large, they’d call 911.
What else can be done? I put that
question to Larry Jacobson, professor
and extension engineer in the Univer-
sity of Minnesota’s department of bio-
products and biosystems engineering.
In 2010, Jacobson headed a National
Pork Board committee which explored
what the 21st-century sustainable hog-
finishing barn should look like.
“Let’s get the manure out of the barn
and let’s store it outside,” he says. That
way, in the barn, “you still have a corro-
sive environment, but it’s probably not
as corrosive.” You’re going to have to
have the same “level of electrical robust-
ness in the wiring.” Ventilation is still
needed as well as “a lot of other things.”
Nevertheless, the move eliminates many
of the risks.
Jacobson’s solution doesn’t sit well
with Van Engelen for a multitude of
reasons. At the top of the list is the
increasing difficulty in obtaining a
municipal building permit for a facility
that has an exterior manure pit. Instead,
try regular maintenance combined with
a ventilation system like his own, he
suggests.
“If you have a 100 per cent pit-
ventilated barn that never lets the gas
come up in the first place, that you can
actually agitate and you will never smell
it inside the barn, only outside the barn
where the fan is, maybe that would be a
lot better.”
BP
COVER
STORY
Doug Ahrens
John Van Engelen, who owns a farrow-to-
finish operation near Thedford in Lambton
County, demonstrates how he uses a leaf
blower to keep the fan heater in his sow
loose housing unit dust-free.