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Content Admin | Jun 26, 2018
For the swine industry, keeping odor to a minimum has been a challenge. With the development of the Electrostatic Precipitator Technology (EPI) system, the detection of odor has been decreased.
John Baumgartner has been working with the technology in hog barns, first with his company, Baumgartner Environics, which has evolved into EPI Air that he operates with his son Matthew at Olivia, Minn. Baumgartner joined forces with Jay Moore, director of Environmental Services for New Fashion Pork, on the development of this technology for swine farm applications after seeing the technology’s success in the factory setting.
Baumgartner thought that same concept could work in hog barns, using an electrostatic charge to collect the odor-carrying dust particles to improve a barn’s indoor air quality for caregiver and pigs.
Moore “came to me with a problem that they were having with one of their sites with odor,” Baumgartner says, “and together we dreamed this up, and I designed it.”
New Fashion Pork, based in Jackson, Minn., has had an electrostatic fence for about three years at a facility near Estherville, Iowa, and Moore has seen its effectiveness. He had been a professor at East Central University in Ada, Okla., before joining Seaboard Farms in 1999 as air quality coordinator to do odor research. Moore has been with New Fashion Pork since 2003.
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