Hallway conversations, tent chats and trade show talks are some of the greatest tools to help pork producers tackle the next tough issue. Industry experts share four “under-the-radar” topics that they believe need more discussion in the pork industry.
1. GLP-1 Drugs and Animal Protein Consumption
“The impact of the use of GLP-1 drugs on animal protein consumption in the U.S. The affordability and access to these drugs by millions of people is absolutely affecting per capita meat consumption in the U.S. While beef may be the biggest beneficiary to date, the pork industry needs to use this pent-up demand to double down on pork’s quality and relative affordability to increase pork demand in demographics where it has lost ground to beef or chicken.” – Hyatt Frobose, commercial director – North America for Jyga Technologies – GESTAL
2. Future Global Demand
“While global pork demand is not likely something that will hurt us this year, next year, or maybe even in the next 5 or 10 years, 20 years from now this has a chance to be an issue. An aging global population, and the reality that global population growth will stop at some point in the next 25 years, has incredible ramifications for our industry. Forewarned is forearmed and we have a chance now to be proactive and drive demand differently than in the past. It will take all of us working together to address this future reality.” – Mark Hulsebus, general manager – U.S. Pork for Alltech
3. Economic, Demographic and Geopolitical Trends
“Global demographic, economic and geopolitical trends are shifting and its re-shaping demand across the food/agriculture space. For a variety of reasons, we’ll be facing these issues sooner in the pork industry than others. Not only do we not have a plan to address these issues, we’ve barely even acknowledged the issue. Demographic shifts are leading to much slower population growth than we’ve grown accustomed to in most parts of the world and the parts of the world that have historically consumed the most pork are now experiencing population decline and rapid population aging. There are still some fast-growing countries in the world, but most of them are in Africa and parts of the Middle East where roughly 50% of the population is Muslim and less than 2% of pork is consumed today. Domestic per capita demand in the U.S. has been flat for decades and while the population is still growing, it is expected to grow at about 1/3 of the rate of the last 50 years over the next 50 years. Additionally, almost all of that growth is expected to come from immigration which is increasingly questionable given recent policy changes. While these demand headwinds increase, animal productivity continues to increase and emerging technologies promise even greater efficiency gains. While that’s certainly great news for efficiency, it creates serious economic challenges for the industry which is increasingly dependent on exports.” – Todd Thurman, founder and CEO of Swine Insights International
4. Disease Elimination Efforts
“The National Pork Board’s initiatives to improve herd health nationwide needs as much press as possible Through partnerships with the Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) and U.S. Swine Health Improvement Plan (US SHIP), we have a real opportunity to make meaningful progress on disease elimination. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is one of the pillars of the program and is a disease we’ve lived with for too long. We know how to eliminate it, and we should.” – Wesley Lyons, director of technical services for Pharmacosmos
