000372 Study: Hog Farms’ Impact Mixed

Omaha, NE - While large hog farms don't hurt local economies, they may be related to higher property taxes and shrinking populations, University of Nebraska researchers say.

A six-state survey found that retail sales remained competitive, per-capita incomes increased and poverty decreased more rapidly in those counties with large hog farms. However, the study also found that populations dropped and property taxes were higher in those counties.

“It's a mixed picture,” said John Allen, a sociologist with the NU Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources who supervised the study. “There were a lot of myths going around that if you had a hog confinement facility, it was either going to add to the local economy or it was going to destroy the local economy.”

The researchers explored the effects of pork production in 36 counties in Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina from 1977 to 1992. Counties with stable pork production were compared with counties with expanded production. Large-scale operations were those with 1,000 head or more.

The researchers found that the number of large-scale operations is growing, while farms with fewer than 500 head are becoming scarcer.

They also found that as hog inventories rose, the number of farm jobs lost in a county fell at a slower rate in those counties with large-scale hog operations.

“I can tell you now what the county trends are, but I can't tell you what it does to each individual community,” Allen said. “That's the next question that needs to be addressed.”

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