Hoops gain support, group reviews plans for more work

Plans are being finalized that outline additional work for the Leopold Center's "Hoop Group."

The Leopold Center's five-year-old research team will receive $187,072 in federal funds to further development and adoption of hooped structure technology. The grant is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service (USDA-CSREES).

Work on the first four objectives will be completed in the next several months. Work on the remaining objectives will occur over a longer period.

Plans include:

• A new manual that outlines practical applications and best management practices of hoop barn use for swine production;
• Development of case study fact sheets that show how hoops are being used for species other than hogs;
• A producer network and demonstration sites;
• A national workshop on hoop barn swine production;
• Initial work to evaluate hoop barns in a total pork production system;
• Development of humane, medically acceptable and economically feasible protocols for using hoop barns to raise pigs that have been segregated from other pigs for welfare, medical and production reasons;
• Initial work to relate housing systems and genetics to meat quality - color, texture, and water-holding capacity of fresh pork - and to relate the interaction of genetic lines and production systems on pork quality traits;
• Investigation of how farmers who use hoops perceive animal welfare benefits and limitations of the technology.

The Leopold Center set up the multi-disciplinary issue team in 1997 to investigate alternative swine production systems, including large, tent-like buildings also known as hooped structures or hoop barns.

"We're excited about the additional support for the work," said Jeri Neal, who helped manage the Leopold Center's issue teams and now oversees a new ecology initiative at the center. "When we invested in this effort five years ago, we never could have anticipated its remarkable rate of adoption in Iowa, from almost zero to more than 2,100 structures in 2001."

The Hoop Group's proposal was supported by a number of people and organizations. Members of the Leopold Center "Hoop Group" are co-leaders Mark Honeyman, ISU research farms coordinator, and Jim Kliebenstein, ISU Department of Economics; Jay Harmon and Tom Richard, ISU Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering; Brad Thacker, ISU College of Veterinary Medicine; Clare Hinrichs, ISU Department of Sociology; and Steven Lonergan, ISU Department of Animal Science.