The photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
The photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

The government will conduct intensive inspections of more than 160 livestock farms to curb odors near highway rest stops and other high-traffic facilities during the summer months. The inspections will be paired with tailored consulting to encourage farms to voluntarily reduce odors, rather than relying on enforcement alone.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced Monday it will inspect livestock farms in the Anseong area of Gyeonggi Province and the Cheonan area of South Chungcheong Province from August through September, focusing on livestock manure management and odor control practices.

The inspections will cover more than 160 farms within a 3-kilometer radius of the Anseong rest stop along the Gyeongbu Expressway. The effort targets odors near highway rest stops that see heavy visitor traffic in summer.

The ministry plans to form a joint inspection team with the Korea Livestock Environment Management Institute, using integrated checklists tailored by livestock type to assess compliance with facility standards, manure management practices and odor reduction measures.

Inspectors will pay particular attention to whether odor-reduction facilities and equipment are properly installed and operating, and whether manure storage and treatment processes pose any risk of odor generation or external leakage. Hog farms will also face close scrutiny of the cleanliness of temporary manure storage facilities and the management of manure storage tanks.

If violations are found, the ministry will notify the relevant local government and continue monitoring until facility improvements and corrective measures are completed.

The ministry said enforcement alone is insufficient to address livestock odor problems and has been running farm-specific consulting alongside inspections. In the first half of this year, it diagnosed odor sources at individual farms that requested help and proposed improvement measures.

Farms that are faithfully implementing the consulting recommendations will be exempt from the current round of intensive inspections, as part of an effort to spread a culture of voluntary odor management.

"Livestock odors cannot be resolved through regulation and enforcement alone — what matters most is the effort farms make themselves to reduce odors," said Lee Jae-sik, director general for livestock policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. "By combining advance consulting with intensive inspections, we will strengthen farms' odor management capabilities and deliver tangible improvements in the livestock environment that the public can feel."


adastra@heraldcorp.com