The Scoop

Every day is Earth Day for pork producers

April 22 is Earth Day for most people, but every day is Earth Day for most pork producers.  Take for example Lynn Harrison, a producer from Wisconsin.  He walks the environmental talk.

On his almost 100-year old farm, Harrison and his family have adopted leading-edge conservation practices to ensure that a shallow lake, Old Elk Lake, stays in its pristine condition.   The family was one of the first in the country to install contour strips and grassed waterways to prevent soil erosion and run-off into the lake.  E & L Enterprises also is 100 percent no-till. 

Harrison’s operation is the only hog farm on the University of Wisconsin, Extension Discovery Farms project.  Harrison volunteers his farm to this multi-year research project that studies real farms and situations and offers other livestock producers in Wisconsin tools to improve their environmental conservation programs.

Harrison is not alone.  The Pork Checkoff sponsors a Pork Industry Environmental Steward program.  Every year, four pork production operations from across the country are selected for their environmental preservation philosophy and efforts.

The 2007 Pork Industry Environmental stewards, include:
• Keppy Farms, Durant, Iowa, represented by Loren and Jeantee Keppy;
• M and J Farms, Hadley, Minn., represented by Mike and Jake Haupert;
• Meadowlane Farms, Frankfort, Ind., represented by Mike Beard;
• Seaboard Foods’ Wakefield Farms, Turpin, Okla., represented by Don Owens.

We have come a long way since the first Earth Day celebration.  When 20 million people first celebrated Earth Day it was when cities where buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught on fire.  Today the environment is different.  Pork Producers are proud to celebrate Earth Day everyday and make a difference in protecting our environment.

More than meets the eye

Ben Carstens
Ben Carstens was intern for the communications department this summer at the National Pork Board. Ben spent three years as a sports editor in Northwest Iowa before going back to Iowa State where he will finish his degree in Journalism and Mass Communications this fall.

I remember my first trip driving home from college during my freshman year at Iowa State. I was cruising through the back roads on the way to Northwest Iowa and every once in a while I would catch a whiff of that familiar smell – a hog farm.

It may sound strange to most people, but I’m guessing a lot of farm kids would agree with me on this one – that smell made me home sick.

I’d grown up with that odor right out my front door my entire life. “The smell of money,” my old man would always say. Mom didn’t always agree, but eventually she too became used to it.

That was 10 years ago, and with every year that passes and every trip back home, I find that I come upon that smell with less frequency.

I didn’t really think about it or know why I came upon it less until I started my internship this summer with the Pork Checkoff. I grew up working with hogs – feeding, vaccinating, loading and unloading, cleaning pens, etc. – and I thought I knew all there was to know.

Boy was I wrong.

Working for the nation’s pork producers at the Checkoff has opened my eyes to the many things that go on behind the scenes in the pork industry. The hard-working people at the Pork Checkoff have made numerous improvements with the help of producers throughout the years and things like odor issues are becoming less and less prevalent.

Not to mention the work done getting today’s pork leaner than ever, creating programs like PQA Plus™ and helping exports break records for 15 straight years.

There’s way more going on than meets the eye…and way less to bother the nose.

Take a whiff; the air's fine

I drove from one end of Iowa to the other a couple of weeks ago on Highway 9. The quilts of color at this time of year rival the lush greens of the Irish countryside. Both are absolutely beautiful. What the Irish don't have is hog barns.

As someone who works for the pork industry, I pay special attention to hog barns when I'm driving. If there's no one tailing me, I'll slow the car, roll down the window and take a whiff. And rarely is my nose offended. I motored past some barns on Highway 9 that in a perfect world would have been built a little farther from the road. But not one set off an olfactory alarm.

I conduct these nasal surveys because I keep reading in the newspaper how hog farmers are fouling the air and making life unbearable for their neighbors. I'm not naive enough to think there aren't a few offenders out there. But I rarely encounter problems in my travels, and I'm willing to wager that 9 out of every 10 pork producers are doing it the right way. I just wish we, as an industry, were better at letting people know that. Sometimes all it takes is a little personal communication.

There are producers out there doing a great job of neighbor relations. Just this past week, a southeast Iowa couple had an open house for 200 neighbors to show them a new barn that soon will hold up to 2,480 pigs. The result was a nice story in the Muscatine Journal and the likelihood that 200 people are less likely to complain about their pigs.

It's just another way pork producers are passing the smell test.

- Mike Wegner

Welcome to The Scoop

The Scoop blog is your source for the Pork Checkoff’s reaction to hot topics within the pork industry and the global economy. The Scoop will address these topics in an effort to provide accurate information on the pork industry.

Our bloggers include Steve Murphy, Joy Johnson, Dr. Paul Sundberg, Mike Wegner and Teresa Roof. Each of these bloggers will provide a unique insight on pork industry issues. The Scoop also may have guest bloggers from time to time to liven up the conversation.

Feedback can be submitted to each article, allowing users to suggest comments that will provide other readers with additional perspectives. Please see our commenting policy for complete details. We look forward to an open exchange of viewpoints and welcome your ideas and feedback.