Sustainability is a continuous improvement journey says Jamie Burr, chief sustainability officer for the National Pork Board. The key word? Journey. After all, sustainability isn’t new to the pork industry. For example, 25 years ago, it took 3.5 pounds of grain to get one pound of gain. Today that number has improved to 2.7 pounds.
“Think about that in terms of how that affects all of the outcomes of feed production from less land needed to feed a pig to less fertilizer needed,” Burr says. “It’s really about efficiency.”
In an effort to track these improvements on the farm, the National Pork Board is funding Pork Cares Farm Impact Reports to help measure and document continuous improvement efforts for the pork industry.
Early adopters who took part in the initial pilot project in 2019 are already seeing trends and making improvements on the farm. But others are skeptical and question if the process is for them.
You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure
For Minnesota pork producer Gordon Spronk, DVM, the hesitation is understandable, but the impact far exceeds any questions he initially had when they began sharing data on their pig farm and cropping operations with the National Pork Board’s trusted partner, Sustainable Environmental Consultants (SEC), who is leading the charge on developing the reports.
“What we can’t measure, we can’t manage,” says Gordon Spronk, DVM, and newly appointed board member for the National Pork Board. “We’re convinced we’re the best of the proteins in this space. I’m convinced we’re the best in this space internationally. But we need the data to prove that.”
The pork industry has many great initiatives taking place, but Angie Krieger, former SEC vice president of operations, shared at World Pork Expo that the Pork Cares Farm Impact Reports are one of those initiatives producers shouldn’t overlook.
“Sustainability does matter for market development. The pork industry is one of the few industries that will be able to very quickly, and already can, back up its sustainability story with data,” Krieger adds.
No one else in the protein space is doing this, she says. That’s why the Pork Cares Farm Impact Reports are such a unique opportunity for producers to take advantage of, she adds. Plus, it’s paid for producers with Checkoff dollars
Sticky Notes Work, Too
The SEC team works with producers to gather on-farm data, where it is and how it is.
“That looks very different for different operations,” Krieger says. “Some farmers are very sophisticated in their record keeping and it can be as easy as plugging into some systems and uploading some data. But others still keep records in notebooks or on sticky notes on farm doors. Our team can work with that, we can collect data wherever it is.”
Once a producer signs up for the report, SEC agronomists and other representatives reach out and connect to do an initial interview with the producer to find out what their goals are, how many acres they might want to enroll in the program, or if they just have barns they want to get data collected on. SEC puts the information into a report and shares it with the producer.
“The National Pork Board has also invested in consulting time to help producers understand where they might make improvements if they’d like to on their farms,” Krieger says. “And that’s not just about environmental sustainability – it’s also about financial sustainability. We can run information through our return-on-investment tool and help producers make sure they’re doing everything they can to be sustainable and profitable.”
Ultimately, its data producers already have and putting it into a common database that allows the industry to benchmark and be more competitive on an international basis, Spronk says.
Should Contract Growers Participate?
SEC works with many integrated systems that are encouraging their contract growers to get the reports completed.
“I would encourage everyone, even if they are not being encouraged by their systems yet, to go ahead and get that baseline report done,” Krieger says.
What’s the value proposition for the contract grower? Spronk points out they are typically the crop farmer as well.
“What they really want is the manure,” he says. “And they’re typically a little bit more independent, too. That’s why the key word is ‘encourage.’ At this point, it’s an ask. If we don’t get participation, it may go further than that someday. In order for the pork industry to have a seat at the table, we’re being asked for this data.”
We Stand on Common Ground
From Spronk’s perspective, some producers simply don’t realize how important that data is to the industry now.
“As producers, we generate a lot of data. If we don’t have the real data, somebody else models it or contributes to it. In general, they can be remarkably wrong,” Spronk says.
Krieger notes their team has taken every precaution to have the highest level of data security. Data is only reported back to the producer and shared as aggregate information with the National Pork Board.
“I share producers’ skepticism and their respect for privacy – we stand on common ground there,” Spronk says. “The issue is if we don’t share our real data, someone else will make it up and fill in that gap for us.”
Request a Pork Cares Farm Impact Report here.
Read More:
