If It Smells Like a Pig, It Must Be....Pork

The first segment of "At the Trough" involves an earmark that quite literally benefits the pork industry. In the massive government funding bill currently before the Senate, Sen. Tom Harkin designated $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa. According to the Associated Press, hog odor is a perennial problem in Iowa’s state legislature, and rightly so – Iowa’s swine industry is worth $12 billion a year. However, it would be fair to say that the American taxpayer has already been quite generous. In fact, the U.S. Congress has already spent $17 million on research relating to pig odor and manure management over the last ten years! Unfortunately, the "a-ha!" moment in pig odor research has proved to be elusive. Despite years of shining ultraviolet lights on pig droppings, millions in government spending have led to little progress in ameliorating this malodorous phenomenon. I’m not an expert on the topic, so I decided to do a little research of my own. Without a single penny of taxpayer dollars, I found a helpful solution. As nationalhogfarmer.com suggests, you could cover the feces with an impermeable material. Yes, this innovative step – covering manure up - could reduce pig odor by up to 85%! Someone get nationalhogfarmer.com some R&D funds! With that all said, I’m sure that we could all agree on the following: this earmark for pig manure is the pits.