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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAmericans love their bacon, ham, sausage and other pork products. Last year, each person ate an average of 52 pounds of pork, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But all that pork production comes at a cost. Air pollution from feces and animal feed at swine farms account for sickness of farm workers and neighbors.
The issue is little understood or tracked. But now, a team of researchers at Purdue University plans to document air-quality issues surrounding pork production.
The team recently received a $500,000 grant from the Foundation for Food & Agricultural Research, a not-for-profit organization set up by Congress as part of the 2014 Farm Bill to increase scientific and technological research and innovation.
Purdue said that particulate matter at high concentrations can affect the health of both workers and animals, as well as people living and working in neighboring areas.
The exact concentrations of such particulate matter within and outside of swine barns at different times is poorly understood, said Jiqin Ni, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue, who is leading the research team.
“We don’t have enough data,” he said in written remarks released by Purdue on March 28. “One of the issues is the lack of appropriate measurement technology.”
Indiana is the fifth-largest home of hogs and pigs, with an inventory of 4.2 million swine as of 2022. That put the Hoosier state behind only Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina and Illinois.
Each year, more than 17,000 thousands of Americans die from the toxic emissions from farms, including methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, from farms of all kinds, include swine farms, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
“Agriculture is a major contributor to air pollution, the largest environmental risk factor for mortality in the United States and worldwide,” the research study said.
Collaborating with Ni on the Purdue research project at Jae Hong Park, assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences; and Brian Richert, associate professor of animal sciences in the College of Agriculture.
Park will develop sensors and samplers for the project.
“Anything in the air, that’s my target,” Park said in written remarks. “…A swine barn and its surrounding area is a very complex environment.”
Swine barns generate gases such as ammonia that may attach to dust, Purdue said. Particulate matter concentrations change greatly with different ventilation rates by operating more fans ands opening inlets and curtains. In winter, the barns operate with minimal ventilation to keep pigs warm.
Ni said there are many commercially available technologies to particulate matter measurement, but none of them are designed for agriculture and livestock use.
“Our objective is to develop a new technology that is low cost, with a faster response and easy to use,” he said.
His team plans to develop a sensor unit combined with software and solar power supply.
The first tests will get underway in the controlled environment swine barn at Purdue’s Animal Science Research and Education Center. The team also plans to validate the technology at commercial swine farms in Indiana and Ohio.
The research is being conducted in partnership with the National Pork Board, a program sponsored by the USDA to promote pork, provide consumer information and provide industry-related research.
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