Jumping off point for pork industry

During the National Pork Industry Forum held March 4-6, 2010 in Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Novak, CEO of the National Pork Board told Brownfield this is the “jumping off point” for the pork industry.

“We have had two years where pork producers have struggled with losing more than $20 for every hog they sold on average as we looked where grain markets were, feed prices for feeding out hogs and what they were getting from the marketplace,” Novak explained.  “ We are starting to see recovery. We are seeing prices that are offering pork producers an opportunity to return a profit. That is an important step for this industry. More importantly for our organization though we are looking ahead to the future and looking ahead to how we can improve pork marketing. How we can focus and refine the research and investments we are making on behalf of the pork producers and we are very very excited about the future to come.”

As for the next step, Novak said, “One of the things we have done this past year is to reach out to consumers. We conducted a 12 to 18 month consumer research project to understand what consumers think about pork, what they think about The Other White Meat advertising, and the way that we have communicated to them about pork. We have found out unfortunately that many folks are still listening to grandma or mom when they say that pork should be overcooked. Today we have a product that is healthy and safe and if consumers would cook it to a medium rare or medium consistency as opposed to over cooking it they would be serving their family a much better product. That is a very important message going forward; how consumers can enjoy pork in more ways. It adds flavor to menus. It adds diversity to menus. That is something we have tried to communicate in the past, but we are truly getting around the table again and rethinking the way that we communicate to consumers.”

It is  also important to communicate with consumers the animal welfare practices that the pork industry is involved in everyday.

“The pork industry, three years ago, at this national meeting adopted a set of ethical principles,” said Novak. ”It wasn’t because this was the first time that they discovered ethics.   These were the values and the principles that pork producers have lived with for years. Yet, suddenly three years ago the industry realized that consumers who no longer have a connection to agriculture – people who not only their parents but their grandparents may not have been involved in food production - that we needed to be able to reach out to those consumers and explain to them what farmers stand for today.  How farmers are committed to protecting the environment, providing better, safer food for tomorrow, as well as providing better animal care. So, the ethical principles that our pork producers adopted became the launching pad for the “We Care” initiative. That initiative encompasses a number of programs that our industry has including the Pork Quality Assurance Plus Program, and the Transport Quality Assurance, a lot of acronyms. But the bottom line for consumers is that pork producers are voluntarily engaging in programs to learn better ways to handle animals, protect the environment, provide safer, better, and higher quality food products to our American consumers. Those steps are going to be important for us in assuring and reassuring consumers about the safety and quality of food.”

There has been a movement toward local where food is concerned. How is the pork industry embracing that?

Novak said, “The issue of local and organic and natural production is vital to this industry and we know that it should be there as a choice for consumer. And I think that is a very important message that we want to share. We do certainly want consumer to have a choice of food products based upon their individual beliefs. To the extent that we want to reassure consumers that the products coming from a modern farm operation are safe, are high quality, are grown or raised in a proper manner. That is an important message for all consumers to understand. At the end of the day for consumers the difference is price. We know that some of our natural systems, some of the systems that aren’t using animal health products regularly produce fewer pigs. They have fewer pigs that are born alive. They have more pigs that get sick from illness and aren’t able to get to market. To that extent, there is a higher cost of production. Those farmers have to pay more to produce the pork that goes on the table. So the expectation is that when consumers see those products in a grocery store they are going to come with a higher price tag. For consumers who can afford that choice it is a great thing. For consumers who are simply looking to feed their family and maximize their food dollar we know that the modern systems we have are better for the animals in many ways. We have moved animals indoors to keep them out of the Midwestern winters and out of the snow drifts to ensure better quality and safety for those animals as well. So, those are some things that I know are a part of consumer discussion and yet we also know that many consumers don’t necessarily understand the methods behind modern production. That is going to be part of the story that we do want to tell consumers going forward.”

Novak suggests that those who want to be involved in telling the story of agriculture should do so, starting in their local community.  “First, the “We Care” initiative, a part of that, one of the ethical principles is that pork producers will be involved and engaged in their community. So, one of the programs we have is Operation Main Street. We have trained 700 pork farmers who will travel thousands of miles each year to visit Kiwanis, Rotary, Optimist Clubs, local Chambers of Commerce, any type of community gathering in a fifty to 100 miles radius of where they are living. They are willing to take their time and provide those audiences with information about pork production and why we do the things that we do on the farm. We are working with some of those Operation Main Street speakers to move into the blogosphere. We are teaching them about facebook and twitter. We have a number of pork producers out there watching the dialogue in social media and jumping in. They are protecting and defending their industry, sharing information about what they are doing on their farms with consumers. We have some pork producers who have actually opened live web links with cameras on their farm operation. So, if consumers want to see what is happening on a farm they have that opportunity. Those are just a few of the things that producers can do. Engaging with local media stations – we have a wonderful farm broadcast crew obviously that helps us share the message - but for producers to pick up the phone or send a letter to their local media stations and offer themselves as a resource is also a great step. The pork check off has a number of tools that can help producers get information that they can share with local media sources. Producers can go to pork.org.  We also have porkcares.org which is a brand new website that we have launched that helps talk about those issues we know consumers have questions about as far as production agriculture; and finally theotherwhitemeat.com has been revamped. It has lots of recipes for consumers who are interested in spicing up their dinner menu.”

Conversation with Chris Novak