A visit with NPPC president Doug Wolf
Pork producer Doug Wolf of Lancaster, Wisconsin is the president of the National Pork Producers Council. On the last day of World Pork Expo, we visited with Wolf about this year’s Expo, feed availability concerns, the possibility of feeding higher percentages of distillers grains to hogs, and trade issues.
NPPC keeping a close eye on EPA’s actions
Back in March, a federal court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cannot require livestock operations to obtain Clean Water Act permits unless and until they have a discharge of manure into a waterway of the United States. At the time, the National Pork Producers Council called it “a major victory for pork producers”.
At World Pork Expo, NPPC’s chief environmental counsel Michael Formica talked about the significance of that ruling and touched on other environmental issues facing pork producers. He also discussed the industry’s concerns with feed availability.
Pork Board has new euthanasia training tools
“Euthanasia—New Tools for Training” was the title of one of the PORK Academy seminars at World Pork Expo. Afterwards, we visited with Sherrie Niekamp, director of swine welfare for the National Pork Board.
Carbon footprint calculator is introduced
On Thursday at World Pork Expo, the Pork Checkoff announced the release of a new software tool for pork producers—the Live Swine Carbon Footprint Calculator.
Developed with the technical expertise of the University of Arkansas’ Applied Sustainability Center, the user-friendly application allows producers to input their on-farm data from the sow or grow-finish side of production to compute the carbon footprint of an entire barn of pigs from breeding to market.
Brownfield’s Ken Anderson discussed the new tool with one of the developers, University of Arkansas professor of chemical engineering Dr. Rick Ulrich.
Novus announces new finishing program
Thursday was a big day for Novus at World Pork Expo as the company announced details of its new Accelerating Finishing Profitability program.
During a morning news conference, two Novus officials and an independent swine nutritionist discussed the new program, which according to a company news release, “helps optimize nutrition and delivers tangible results to the performance and profitability of a pork operation during the grow-finish phase.”
Participants included Randy Anderson and Dr. Brad Lawrence of Novus, and Mark Bertram of First Choice Livestock. Brownfield’s Ken Anderson visited separately with each of those individuals.
AUDIO: Randy Anderson (3 min MP3)
Feed availability a major concern
The National Pork Producers Council is renewing its call for USDA to help corn end users develop a feed rationing plan, to be implemented in the event of a short crop in 2011.
Minnesota producer and NPPC director Randy Spronk says the late planting and flooding in many parts of the country have heightened their concerns.
“If we don’t have over 90 million acres—and if we don’t have trendline yields—we do have an issue,” Spronk says. “There is a lot of demand out there—and somehow or another, we need a plan to be able to ration that crop.
“We just have a genuine concern for our animals that we need feed availability.”
Spronk says there could be regional spot shortages of corn this summer—but he says they are just as concerned about 2012 supplies.
“We’ve not only got this crop year that we’re barely going to make it. We’re also anticipating the next one here,” he says. “So we’re kind of back-to-back in a very precarious postion—that we need a real good crop.”
Pork producers await next move on GIPSA
Pork producers are anxiously—and, in some cases, nervously—awaiting the USDA’s next move on the proposed GIPSA marketing rule.
The USDA has rejected recent calls to hit the reset button on its proposed GIPSA rule. Indiana pork producer Mark Legan , who heads up the Competitive Markets Committee of the National Pork Producers Council, says he expects USDA to release the proposed—and possibly revised—rule by the end of the year.
“We really don’t have a good handle on when that will be exactly,” Legan says. “We’re really not hearing much from USDA. The ball is in their court, so to speak. They did receive 60-thousand comments on the proposed rule—and we’ll just have to see what comes out of their shop.”
As a producer, Legan says his concerns with GIPSA haven’t changed.
“It would impact the way I do business with the producers in contracting my production,” he says, “and also would affect marketing agreements that I would have with packers.”
Pork Board bolsters “Pork Be Inspired”
The National Pork Board is bolstering its new “Pork Be Inspired” advertising campaign with an additional four million dollars.
The new influx of pork checkoff dollars—which brings the Pork Board’s total 2011 ad budget to 15 million—has been generated by the higher-than-anticipated hog prices so far in 2011. The additional four million dollars will be used to add a fall television advertising schedule to the campaign.
According to the Pork Board’s VP of domestic marketing, Ceci Snyder, the Be Inspired campaign targets the consumer “who loves to cook, is not afraid of pork—and just needs a little nudge to increase frequency.” And while there are no concrete numbers on whether the campaign is moving the needle on consumer behavior, Snyder says the early reviews have been positive.
“We have online advertising behavior, which has been terrific—the consumers clicking on our ads, printing our recipes, sharing via social media,” Snyder says, “and we have reviews directly from retailers—our advisory committee of retailers has been fantastic—and from packers. So it’s a little bit anecdotal at this point. We will have more hard data—sales data—by July.”
AUDIO: Ceci Snyder (1 min MP3)
Another big boost for pork marketing efforts was the USDA’s recent announcement that pork can be safely consumed at 145 degrees, 15 degrees less than in the previous guidelines.
“The temperature change basically helps consumers understand that you don’t have to cook pork to the consistency of shoe leather,” says National Pork Board CEO Chris Novak. “The 145 degrees that USDA approved for whole cuts of fresh pork is consistent with all of the red meats. It’s also going to deliver a tender, juicy, nutritious product to our consumers.”
COOL, China and FTAs
When it comes to discussing agricultural trade, Nick Giordano doesn’t pull many punches.
Giordano is the VP and counsel for international affairs for the National Pork Producers Council. During an NPPC-sponsored news conference at World Pork Expo, Giordano discussed several trade issues:
- Reports that the WTO is going to issue a ruling against the United State’s country of origin labeling (COOL) law.
- China’s new labeling requirements on imported meat products. The U.S. Meat Export Federation says those new rules will cause problems for exporters of U.S. pork.
- The latest delay in Congressional consideration of the three free trade agreements—the Obama administration’s insistence that a Trade Adjustment Assistance program be renewed before the FTAs are acted upon.
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