Iowa Select Farms is implementing a combination of new and old technologies to reduce odors from its Hale Finisher barn near Williams, Iowa. An electrostatic fence (in the background) will combine with the windbreak of arborvitea techny and dogwood shrubs to stop dust and odors coming from the tunnel-ventilated wean-to-finish barn.

John Frazier of Frazier Nursery of Vinton, Iowa, uses the analogy comparing a swine barn to a great work of art. “If you have a Picasso, you want to put a nice frame around it,” he says, “so if you have a nice hog building, you’re going to want to put trees around it because that’s framing your Picasso.”

Also, as Kent Mowrer, field specialist with the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers, puts it: “If you can’t see it, you can’t smell it.”