Groundbreaking in Barkley Township

One of the few perks of being a blogger is that occasionally I get invited to an interesting event. Thursday was one such day. I attended the ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Premier BioSource facility that will raise swine for medical research.

This blog has reported some of the regulatory meetings that approved the plans needed for this facility. Most of the details of the project are in a post from January 24, 2018 with less here and here. The name of the owning company of this facility has changed. In the January meetings the owner was S&S Farms. However, that name is already used by an Indiana company, so the new name is Premier BioSource. The contractor for the buildings is Summit Livestock Facilities, and their name was on most of the signage at the groundbreaking. They are a sister company to FBI builders in Remington and design and build CAFOs throughout the county. I talked to one person with the company and he told me that they were currently building a CAFO in Arizona.

The Premier BioSource pig farm will be located in Barkley Township two or three miles directly west of the little community of Gifford. As one enters the site on a long gravel/stone road, one passes two large silos. In the past this property raised cattle and there are still structures from that past. They look old and run-down. The construction site is on a sand ridge and there is no obvious evidence that it was ever cultivated. The site is surrounded by trees and once it is built, it is unlikely that anyone who travels the adjacent roads will realize that there is a large hog farm nearby.

There were many cars already there when I arrived. Most of the people invited were associated with a related enterprise, but various public officials also attended. A tent had been erected so the audience could sit to hear several speakers and next to it food was being prepared for a lunch after the ceremony.

Here is a picture of the sign on the fence in the picture above.

People milled around and talked a while before they were directed to the seating. Jon Hoek, who is the general manager of Premier BioSource, spoke first. He introduced various members of the audience who were in some way or another associated the project, including several people from companies that use research animals. He noted that the facility is expected to employ 21 people when all the stages are finished and hourly wages will range from $15 to $25. The employees will be in transportation, animal care, and farm management. This facility will serve the eastern half of the country; the existing S&S Farm in California serves the West. He also noted that air will be filtered both going in going out of the facility.

The next speaker was Indiana's Lt Governor, Suzanne Crouch. She touted Indiana's record as a good place for agriculture and agricultural business. She hoped that this facility would aid in making Indiana a center of biomedical research.

 Kendall Culp, Jasper County Commissioner and VP of the Indiana Farm Bureau, spoke next. He noted that he had opted to attend an event at a hog farm rather than attend a Trump rally in Evansville. He briefly discussed the past of the property and was one of the speakers who noted that this facility was raising animals that could one day save human lives, quite different from what other hog farms do. He also reminded the audience and the Lt Governor that Jasper County is Indiana's top agricultural producer.

The final speaker was Mark Bousema, the president of Premier BioSource. He gave brief history of how a boy from Iowa who moved to California ended up with a hog farm in Indiana. His father was not a farmer but sold shoes. He met his future wife at Dordt College in Iowa. She was from California and they moved there after college. His wife's family had a dairy farm with a few pigs, and an unexpected sow pregnancy changed his life. The litter had some runts that Mark and his wife raised. Some died, but three lived and he discovered that he liked pigs. He began to raise them on the side and eventually joined up with S&S Farms (which is named after its founders, Tom and Carl Salayer). The desire to better serve the eastern US eventually led him to Indiana and Jasper County.

After the speeches, it was time for the ceremonial groundbreaking. Thirteen people got shovels.

 Here is the moment when they tossed a shovel full of dirt into the air.

 After the groundbreaking, I got a chance to take a better picture of the Lt Governor. Here she is talking to Jon Hoek.

 Then the Lt Governor got into a mini excavator and a man helped her dig a scoop of dirt.

 I asked if I could get closer to the actual construction work that was a hundred yards or so from where the ceremony was taking place and was told it was OK.

People stayed around and talked as well as enjoyed some pulled pork sandwiches. I met several people. One worked for the Indiana Department of Agriculture. She told me that unlike many state departments of agriculture, Indiana's Department of Agriculture is not involved in regulation. Rather they try to promote agriculture. I asked if she had noticed an increase of NIMBYism. She said that she had and that a lot of it was based on misconceptions of how modern agriculture works.

Here is the press release from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and an article from InsideIndianaBusiness.com.

In a couple of related items, the large Remington elevator has closed. It was old and apparently did not meet modern practices well. The Rensselaer Republican recently had an article about the closing. On the way north I noticed that as one approaches the bridge over the Iroquois river on US 231 there are signs that announce that on or after September 4 the road will be closed. That will disrupt travel for some people.