ADAMS – "Knowledge is power," Mower County pork producers were reminded Tuesday night.

Thursday, September 23, 1999

ADAMS – "Knowledge is power," Mower County pork producers were reminded Tuesday night.

And, how one uses all the information out there is "true power," they were also reminded.

If this sounds like a lecture from the Star Wars movie for Jedi Knights, so be it. Pork producers are themselves battling foes around every agriculture corner as the search for truth and justice in farming goes on.

A Pork Crisis Forum filled the All-Purpose room at Southland Public Schools in Adams Tuesday evening. Sponsored by area veterinary clinics, the forum brought Dr. Dave Pyburn (DvM) and Dr. John Lawrence (EdD) to discuss the status of the pork industry.

Pyburn is a former Osage veterinarian, who now is director of veterinary services for the National Pork Producers Council in Des Moines, Iowa.

Lawrence is an ag economist at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. Tuesday night’s forum in Adams was the third-such discussion of agricultural issues that Lawrence had joined in four days.

The speakers were introduced by Dr. Mark Engesser of Stateline Veterinary Clinic, who served as moderator for the free-wheeling, mainly question-and-answer-style discussion of the pork crisis.

When pork prices plummeted to all-time lows last winter, it sent producers reeling. Also affected were financial institutions in rural communities and the communities’ main streets, where farmers spend much of their share of the some $4 billion in equity lost to the deflated prices.

When a pseudorabies epidemic struck herds, it only exacerbated producers problems. Small producers stopped vaccinating their herds, because they could no longer afford to do so. In the end, 618 herds and 768,000 swine were depopulated and some $57.5 million indemnity went to producers who lost their herds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s federal buyouts.

It caused the industry to take a look at itself and Tuesday night, Pyburn and Lawrence said producers may not like what they see.

Pyburn, who formerly worked at the Osage Veterinary Clinic, before joining the NPPC, naturally promoted the NPPC’s 8-point Recovery Action Plan for the pork industry.

But, Pyburn’s own remedy for pork producers’ woes is "knowledge." He said, "Knowledge is the premier input in our production process."

"The farmer as businessman, who is well-positioned with linkages to market his product, will survive and succeed in the future," Pyburn said. "Today, producers must form vertical linkages in the pork market."

Saying American pork is the "best, safest, healthiest meat product in the world," Pyburn urged the producers to be prepared for change and to change.

"Those who resist change will lose," he said.

"There are niche markets out there and producers must choose the right system for themselves. They must know what the customer wants, the way they want it and when they want it," he said.

"Knowledge will be the single-most important factor in agriculture and American farmers will have to make changes to the way they do business," Pyburn said.

"You must see change as an ally and not as a threat," he said.

But the realist in Pyburn understands American farmers need help and he left the producers with the telephone number (1-202-720-3631) for the direct line to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in Washington, D.C.

‘Figures don’t lie’

Dr. John Lawrence underscored the adage that "Liars figure, figures don’t lie."

Lawrence charted the changes happening to the American pork industry as much like an Economics 101 professor as an economist talking to pork producers.

His part of Tuesday night’s forum was a free-wheeling question and answer session filled in between with charts and graphs that, he said, showed the figures that couldn’t lie about too much pork going to the market.

"Is there a hog cycle anymore?" a producer wanted to know. Lawrence said there is and if the industry had observed what charts and graphs said in the mid-1980s, the current price decline could have been anticipated.

"Would cheap grain prices make a difference?" Lawrence said, "If you add another buck on the price of corn, sure, some people would hang around a little longer. Is that going to happen? You know and I know, not right now."

"What about the pork supply? Can it be adjusted?" Lawrence had no definitive answer why the numbers of hogs slaughtered have grown to the 1.97 million mark last week and threaten to surpass the "dreaded" 2 million mark of a year ago, when the crisis burst on the scene. "Last year we were in unchartered territory when that happened. This year, we should know better," he said.

Calling his presentation the "Candle at the end of the tunnel," Lawrence told the producers before they can be blinded, again, by the light of success, they must fumble in the darkness of lingering problems in the industry.

"We’ve got a wonderful product. The safest meat in the world, but the problem is we’ve just got too much of it," he said.

One sign of the lingering affects of the crisis is the amount of poultry and meat in cold storage. According to Lawrence, the amount of poultry in cold storage now is at an all time high and more hogs are processed from October through April in anticipation of the largest buying seasons (spring, summer and fall) ahead.

Lawrence answered questions on Canada’s pork industry and the new processing plant north of the border, the Smithfield-Murphy Farms merger, the decline of spot markets and the growth of contracting, anticipated orders for 2000 and the "wild cards" or events which could attack the industry next year among other queries of producers.

Finally, he shared with them his own observations.

"I second what Dave Pyburn said about knowledge being power for pork producers in the future," he said. "But how you use that knowledge, how you use all the information out there determines the real power. All I did tonight was to provide you with information. How you use that information is the challenge you face."