For farmer Jim Heimerl, taking care of the land is both the right thing and the sensible thing to do.
Heimerl Farms, based in Johnstown, recently received the 2004 National Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Pork Board.
Heimerl Farms contracts with more than 20 finishing facilities across the state that house and raise pigs and brings about 125,000 pigs to market annually, and yet has never had any Environmental Protection Agency complaints against it, he said.
"We try to do environmental things right," Heimerl said. "We want to do a better job than we need to. It's a lot easier to do things right than fix things once they've gone wrong."
To that end, Heimerl said he promotes measures at the farms he works with to lessen the impact on the surrounding environment and reduce odors and the facilities' visual presence that neighbors can find offensive.
Heimerl and most other area farmers have good environmental stewardship records, said Licking County Agricultural Extension Agent Howard Siegrist.
Since Ohio Fresh Eggs acquired Buckeye Egg Farm's former facilities -- for years a source of complaints about odors, insects and manure runoff -- in December, Siegrist said he hasn't heard of any problems with the Croton area farm.
"We're doing real well. We've had very few problems other than Buckeye Egg, but that has not been a problem with the new owner in the past year," Siegrist said. "But there's a need to maintain an awareness and maintain a continuing level of stewardship."
The biggest risk to the environment from farms is livestock manure, Siegrist said. Typically, it is spread on crop land as a fertilizer, but heavy rains or snowfall soon after application can wash it into surrounding waterways, killing aquatic life and contaminating potable water supplies, Siegrist said.
Heimerl said he tries to head off environmental problems before they occur by asking the farmers he works with to collaborate with their local soil and water conservation districts and file a manure management plan, though that is not currently required by law, he said.
Other safeguards include using a feed additive that lowers phosphorous levels in the manure and spreading manure a few inches under the soil so that the chance of runoff into water supplies and the smell is reduced. "Deep-pit" barns, which contain buried cement basins that collect manure underground, are used at many of his contractors' facilities to help prevent the odor from overwhelming the area.
Simply keeping the facilities tidy goes a long way toward making a good impression, Heimerl said.
"My opinion is people smell with their eyes. When people see something that looks dirty, it's going to smell dirty," he said.
Setting up in more isolated areas and encouraging the planting of trees around the farms to improve their appearances and shield them from view also helps head off complaints, Heimerl said.
