I am generally a fan of the concept of “vertical farming,” IE building/converting skyscrapers into huge hydroponic growing towers. I think their necessity is inevitable and beyond that they’re just a good idea.
But lemme get this straight: vertical pig farming? And open-air vertical pig farming at that? Did nobody involved in the design of this potential project perchance smell a pig before going ahead with drawing up plans?
Because live pigs, you know, smell kind of bad. Horrendously bad. And when you have a lot of pigs – like, for example, in a skywards-oriented factory farm – they smell really, really bad. Like “watch surrounding property values plummet” bad. Like “health hazard” bad.
I could almost see it if we were talking sealed-building vertical pig farms (although doubtless that would not be great for the pigs). But open-air? In Canada? What are they gonna do in winter, twenty stories up, when -30 winds are a daily occurrence? Are they going to just deal with the pigsicles?
Top comment: The pig shit problem is an easy fix. All you do is get a giant and a midget, who must dress in matching leather outfits, to work in the recesses of the building and turn the manure into cheap energy. — Zenrage
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Oh wow, I’d never heard of or thought of vertical farming before. That sounds like an interesting way to get around space limitations in more crowded areas. (Fresh produce grown in the middle of New York city? Astounding!)
“Are they going to just deal with the pigsicles?”
No, they’re going to deal *in* pigsicles. This is just a marketing problem. Show some lateral thinking ability, man.
I’m from North Carolina where we have county-sized hog farms and, I swear they’re called this, “lagoons” of hog waste. Pig shit is toxic waste. Seriously. To quote David Foster Wallace (actually quote him quoting his father) it smealls like “Death taking a shit.” People down-wind pass out because of the chemicals in it. It’s the color of pepto bismol. If it gets into the ground water wells are contaminated for miles around.
I can’t imagine how a “vertical” hog farm works. A smokestack for noxious fumes with animals on the inner tiers? I’m sure smart people developed this idea, but color me flummoxed.
As a native of North Carolina (And I’m just now noticing the previous comment so I’ll skip ahead), hog farmers aren’t really concerned about how everyone else will deal with the problem, as long as the tower doesn’t tip over.
The pig shit problem is an easy fix. All you do is get a giant and a midget, who must dress in matching leather outfits, to work in the recesses of the building and turn the manure into cheap energy.
and by the way… Happy Square Root Day
Pigs will fly!!
You just know whoever wrote this article was given deliberate marching orders to make it sound like a good idea.
“Alright, I need you to put some gloss on this fifty story pork-flavored nightmare. Make it sound progressive.”
Well, Zen, as Tracey Morgan said about the latest stock market downturn “I advise everyone to take a deep breath, calm down and start prepairing your bodies for thunderdome. For that is your new law.”
Many farms combat the smell of their pigs by spraying them twice daily with a naptha compound. This eliminates the smell…but causes cancer for people living miles downwind.
As for the cold, I have no idea how they plan on handling it. There are pig farms as far north as the Dakotas, I know — how do they deal with it? Maybe pigs, like cattle, can handle some level of extreme cold?
Just work on the damn replicator technology, already. I want to slice pig meat out of a kitchen appliance (with a ‘squealing’ button optional).
It’s more an airborne bacon delivery system than a pig farm. This could speed up my morning BLT exponentially, smell be damned.
We had a small farm when i was growing up, and about a dozen pigs. Just walking through the barn in the morning to check on them was enough to permeate your clothing with the manure stink so badly that you needed to shower and change before you went into town.
No thanks.
Actually, gravity can do a fair bit to help with the waste situation. A simple system of sluices can be used to funnel the waste down the tower and into containment vessels, which can then, I would hope, be properly dealt with. As for the cold, I’m not sure what they’re hoping to do there. Pigs are fairly robust animals, but below zero temperatures are probably pushing it. Theoretically, they could alternate open and enclosed floors to deal with the situation. That’s just me brainstorming, though.
I don’t really see why you’d want or need a factor pig farm in the middle of down town anywhere. Part of the reason you want to grow vegetables close to home stems from the fact that once you pick a berry or dig up a cucumber, the food starts to go bad.
By contrast, you can take a pig out of its pen and drag it anywhere you want without fear the pig will sour before you kill it. So city-centric slaughter houses might make a certain degree of sense. But city-centric breeding pens? Not so much.
Not to mention the fact that factor farms are somewhat horrific and brutal. Imagine looking across from your office skyrise to the building down the street and seeing poxed swine packed check to jowel in their own shit. Somehow, I think it would reduce the demand for pork products.
oh god, the mental imagery…
The funny thing here is that when I studied environmental science at the university we took a visit to an ecological pig farm here in sweden. It smelled just like your normal stable for horses, that is not very much at all if you are used to the countryside. Since sweden is cold they spent a lot of time indoors, but the large pens themselves were separated, with the major area on the bottom filled with straw so that you pretty much just saw the upper backs of the pigs. Then there was the toilet area upstairs. The pigs were surprisingly clean, and did not use the main area as their toilet at all. They never do if given a choice.
Also, i think that what they are fed affect the smell a LOT. High protein (often animal protein) commercial feeds pretty much makes the shit look like tar. On the other hand, the basic vegetable high fiber diet makes for a completely different thing.
In contrast, normal pig farms do stink to high heaven. Oh yes they do.
They must be trying to make Canada undesirable again.
Also, i think that what they are fed affect the smell a LOT. High protein (often animal protein) commercial feeds pretty much makes the shit look like tar. On the other hand, the basic vegetable high fiber diet makes for a completely different thing.
HUGE influence. those lagoons mentioned by the poster further above? they’re from CAFO”s, an industry buzzword for “confined animal feed operation”. these farms can breed many more animals per plot, but the quality suffers big time. PETA occasionally goes out to the worst of the worst for pictures, doing a bit of real activism for once.
although, here in the states at least, many feeds also are based off of corn. lots and lots of corn.
oh god, the goggles…
Break a deal, face the wheel!!
If you feed your pigs properly and keep them clean, they don’t stink. There’s a faint, warm smell of manure, but that’s it. I don’t eat pork, bacon or ham because I can’t get properly farmed pig meat. (There is an organic, ecologically-sound farm near where I live but it ships all its pigs to the city!) But I don’t think that’s the kind of piggery you’re going to get in the US.
As others have said, pigs are very clean when given the opportunity. And yet, on a vertical pig farm, I’m not thinking they’ll have the opportunity.
Clearly they’ll keep the pigs warm by burning the feces!
1. Hear about vertical pig farms
2. Copyright the term “shitscraper”
3. ???
4. Profit!