Health challenges, marketing, technology and pork as an important protein are top of mind for the four producers who sat down with Chip Flory, host of “AgriTalk,” at World Pork Expo.
Aaron Juergens, an Iowa producer, points out the industry has been dealing with PRRS for 20-plus years and it always pops up at the worst possible time.
“We do our best practices daily, starting from the sow farm all the way to making sure we’re washing everything to having vets and caretakers on board and throwing everything at it to make it work,” he says. “There’s profitability today so you get throughput on every part of the operation.”
Chad Leman, who farms in central Illinois, says industry-wide, producers have been dealing with PRRS and PED in March, April and May, despite efforts to address the diseases.
“Despite all the biosecurity, we throw at these farms, we still struggle with it,” Leman says. “Our finishing barns are full, but they’re also full of more expensive weaned pigs than what we thought we were going to stock them with.”
One concept that could be part of the solution is gene editing and PRRS-resistant genetics. The technology is encouraging, but producers say there’s still more to learn.
“It sounds wonderful, and I think it could be part of the solution,” Juergens says. “But it’s really hard to say there’s going to be one magic bullet for the industry.”
Nathan Schroeder, who supports gene-editing technology, and says people usually fit into one of three groups — they’re either against it, 100% for it or somewhere in the middle and support the industry making progress.
“My son’s floating around here [at World Pork Expo] somewhere. I care about what he eats. I care about what you eat. I care about what our consumers eat,” Schroeder says. “We don’t, as an industry, want to do harm to anything. That’s why there’s so much science behind our decisions.”
Marketing and production goals are also on the minds of producers.
“Just looking at the margins for the next four or five quarters, they look healthy,” Leman says. “If we can keep pigs healthy, there’s good margins and that keeps us in business.”
Juergens is encouraged by JBS investing in a new sow plant in his home state.
“When you see somebody drop $135 million in Iowa that gives you a good feeling,” he adds. “We’re going back to our farms, and we got to make that investment in a new barn, new technology or what the next thing is going to be when you see a major player making a big splash. There’s going to be further processing down the road. It gives you a breath of fresh air.”
Kyle Baade, who raises show pigs with his family in southeastern Nebraska, is focused on investing in the next generation.
“We’re looking to improve genetics and bring in sires and different lines,” he says. “We’re on the cusp of heading into breeding season for the Midwest, so we’re always looking to gain an advantage on what we can utilize to make our product better.”
With reports of protein demand continuing to rise, the industry wants to capitalize by getting pork onto more plates both in the U.S. and around the globe.
“We came out with a new slogan, Taste What Pork Can Do, we’re trying to hit it on all cylinders,” Juergens notes. “We have a large geographic population in the United States, and we’re trying to hit all those consumer trends. It’s a big undertaking trying to get on everybody’s plate. We want to be center cut. We want to be on the pizza. We want to be the breakfast.”
When it comes to trade issues, Leman and Juergens say it’s important to keep focusing long-term, developing current relationships and building new export markets.
“We had the Vietnamese in town on Monday signing MOUs,” Juergens says. “We’re trying to get into that population of 300 million people in Indonesia and Vietnam. We need to get into these new export markets. We have to keep focused on our good customers, new customers and just be wide open for everything. The world is growing, so we need to be everywhere.”
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