As livestock production increases worldwide, livestock waste is becoming a serious environmental hazard. In some cases, the damages have been spectacular and even tragic. In June 1995, the artificial waste lagoon at a hog farm in North Carolina burst. The sudden release of nearly 100 million litres of hog urine and feces polluted neighbouring communities and killed millions of fish in nearby rivers (Worldwatch, March/April, 2001). In 2000, drinking water contaminated by livestock waste led to several deaths in the small Canadian town of Walkerton.

In other cases, livestock waste causes continuous and pervasive damage to people's health and the environment. Such is the situation in the Philippines, according to a recent EEPSEA-supported study. In response, the study team investigated a number of solutions and highlighted those that could mitigate the problem - given adequate support from policy makers.

Odours Accompany Airborne Diseases

Catelo and her team found that 70% of households near piggeries said that they were affected by odour from pig wastes. The most common health effects were those related to respiratory diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia. Ailments such as diarrhea, influenza and skin allergies were also reported. Households near backyard piggeries suffered an average of PHP 15,640 per year in health damages due to asthma and 15,220 for bronchitis. Although not all of this is attributable to the piggeries, a comparison between people who suffer the odours from pig waste and those who do not showed that the illness is higher in those places where smells are a problem.

Water Bodies Have Become Unusable

Eighty percent of the backyard and commercial farms in the region deposit their waste products into local creeks and rivers. For the sample of 91 farms, total manure production per year was about 672 tons. This means that the entire swine population of Majayjay produce about 6,900 tons of manure a year. An evaluation of the characteristics of the waste water from hog farms and affected surface waters showed that these do not pass the standards set by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources even for Class C waters.

The majority of respondents agreed that the direct dumping of piggery wastes has caused most rivers and creeks in Majayjay to become polluted and emit foul odours. Older residents claimed that the quality of water had deteriorated since pig farms came into the region and that rivers, which once provided drinking and bathing water, fish and recreation, now were polluted, cloudy and malodourous.