Letters policy

The News Courier encourages letters to the editor. Submissions should be no more than 400 words and should include a name, address and telephone number for verification. Submissions that do not meet requirements are subject to editing. Send letters by noon on Thursdays to P.O. Box 670, Athens, Ala., 35613, or e-mail to kelly@athensnews-courier.com.

Hog farm bill: no good for Alabama

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it

probably is. If it smells like the feces of 10,000 hogs, it probably is a

corporate owned and ALFA backed hog farm. If ALFA and the corporate backers

of Senate Bill 285 have their way, many residential property owners and soon

to be former family farmers in the state of Alabama may be forced to welcome

all those hogs.

Bill 285 is misleadingly called the “Family Farm Preservation Act.”

No preservation involved, however, because this bill simply immunizes huge

corporate hog farms from nuisance lawsuits. Known in the industry as

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), these big businesses are

nasty operations. Immunity from lawsuits and protecting their money from