The chair of Manitoba Chicken Producers says farmers should not be forced to bear the brunt of legislation aimed at addressing the nutrient issues in Lake Winnipeg.

"Science is science. We're not objecting to science itself, but we are objecting to being unfairly targeted," explains Jake Wiebe.

15 provincial producer groups, including MCP, say they are concerned about a lack of scientific basis for provincial legislation, such as Bill 46 which bans hog industry expansion (unless it utilizes a yet-to-be-defined technology to protect water quality.)

"So far they're targeting the hog industry - they're an easy target - but every livestock producer has a byproduct of manure. Phosphorous is an issue for everybody," he says. "Even the crop producers, everyone, we're putting phosphorous down, either manure or synthetic phosphorous, because the crops need it to grow."

"What people probably do not realize is how regulated the agriculture industry is in terms of the environment. We are the original environmentalists. We've been taking care of our land and using manure for centuries to grow crops. We just want to make sure the public is aware of what we are doing," he says. "We take a great deal of pride in caring for the environment and we're always improving the sustainability of farming practices."

"We just want to make sure that no agricultural group gets unfairly targeted for something that's happening to the lake, and that we look at solving it with best practices instead of having one sector bear the brunt of it."