PRESTON, Minn. – The Fillmore County Planning Commission voted at a packed hearing to recommend doubling the county’s feedlot maximums to 850 cows and 13,300 finishing pigs. The Planning Commission recommendation goes next to the full County Board. Opponents said the manure from larger operations would threaten groundwater in the porous and fragile limestone that undergirds the county. That’s not to mention the stink, opponents said. Several large-farm operators said they should be free to grow their businesses. There also is another economic motivation, they argued — to keep multi-generation farms in the family. A fourth-generation farm for example, could have as many as eight families – children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – all trying to make a living from the operation.
The Daley alliance
At the meeting was Ben Daley, a Lewiston dairy farmer in neighboring Winona County. The Winona County Board has stood firm against factory farming to preserve water and air quality – and Daley has fought the county with almost every conceivable strategy and tactic for a variance to expand his herd from the county’s max of 1,500 animal units to 6,000. An animal unit is 1,000 pounds whatever the herd, cattle or swine. Fillmore County has a ceiling of 2,000 animal units, which large-scale farmers want upped to 4,000.
Ben Daley. No mere interloper from Winona County. He sees a stake in what Fillmore County does.