It’s Time to Up Your Game
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Those words spoken by Duane Sprouse, a vocational ag instructor at a small high school in Iowa, inspired one student to chase after his dream to become a pork producer even though he didn’t have a pig to his name when he started.
If you’ve ever heard Rob Brenneman, a pig farmer from Washington, Iowa, share his story, you know just how life-changing Mr. Sprouse’s words were. Those words not only encouraged Brenneman as a person and a pork producer, but also had a ripple effect on the U.S. pork industry thanks to Brenneman’s contributions. I can’t help but think how important those words are today.
The threat of African swine fever (ASF) moving closer to the U.S. has everyone asking hard questions. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they feel like they have a pit in their stomach. I feel the same. But I walked away a little lighter after listening to Brenneman share his story at the Annual Carthage Veterinary Services Swine Health and Production Conference.
“If you want to keep getting what you are getting, keep doing what you are doing,” Brenneman said. “But if you want things to get better, be willing to change and find a way.”
Have a Plan in Place and Follow It
This isn’t the time to sit around and worry. It’s time to up your game.
Start by reviewing your own biosecurity plan, says Patrick Webb, acting chief veterinarian at the National Pork Board. Make sure you have a plan in place and that your team is following the plan. He also offers these five recommendations.
1. Pay close attention to the key parts of those plans related to trying to exclude virus from a farm.
2. All food intended for human consumption (e.g. employee lunches) should never enter, be stored or eaten in areas where there is direct contact with pigs.
3. Make sure if people have been traveling internationally, they know where employees have been and they're abiding by the appropriate protocols for their return to live production.
4. Enroll in your state’s secure pork supply plan. Get your site-specific enhanced biosecurity plan and map ready.
5. Create your free AgView account and start working to upload locations and movements and secure pork supply documentation so it’s available to state animal health officials in the event the U.S. gets a positive case of ASF.
Go Execute
“Don’t keep doing what you’ve been doing because it is easier,” Brenneman encouraged.
He pulled up a photograph of his family as he wrapped up his presentation and pointed to it.
“That’s my why. My goal is that I leave everything on the table for these guys. I’m raising pigs and making a difference for my family,” Brenneman said. “We have to stand up for what we believe in. If we don’t offer a future in this industry for young people, we’ve failed. I’m making my business sustainable so these guys have the same opportunity as I did.”
What’s your why? What drives what you do each day? Our industry needs us all to stand together and work as a team to do our part to keep threats at bay.
“It’s time to go home and execute,” Brenneman said.
More from Farm Journal's PORK:
AgView: New Tool to Protect Swine Industry from Foreign Animal Disease Fallout
It’s Unlikely the U.S. Will Escape ASF
USDA to Host Webinar Series on African Swine Fever in September
