The second annual National Barrow Show University included two professors and a "pessimistic old cuss" Monday at the fairgrounds in Austin.

Tuesday, September 14, 1999

The second annual National Barrow Show University included two professors and a "pessimistic old cuss" Monday at the fairgrounds in Austin.

Drs. Earl Dotson and Floyd McKeith were the professors. Dr. Glenn Grimes was the "pessimistic old cuss."

That’s what Grimes, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, called himself.

He was referring to his message of "cautious optimism" for the pork industry.

Grimes said he hoped there would be a different story to tell "a year from now and that I’ll be remembered here as a pessimistic old cuss."

The 53rd annual NBS got under way Monday in Austin and continues today and tomorrow. Four purebred breeds, Spotted, Yorkshire, Hampshire and Poland China, take the spotlight today. Tomorrow, it’s the Chester White, Duroc, Berkshire and Landrace turn to face the judges and auctioneers.

The best of the eight purebred breeds are on display at the so-called "World Series of swine shows." According to Larry Rasch, superintendent, more than 20 states are represented at this year’s show.

Monday’s NBS agenda was filled by the National Swine Judging Contest, truckload and Hog College judging.

Inside Crane Pavilion, the nation’s best pork producers heard three experts talk about the pork industry.

Dotson spoke first, and the National Pork Producers Council coordinator for environmental, education and production issues didn’t disappoint the crowd.

Dotson’s message to the nation’s pork producers was: "We must create a strong message that U.S. pork is the world’s best."

He said American pork can lay claim to being the world’s best, because of food safety.

"We have the best in the world," he said, "and we must continue to ensure food safety measures are in place and used from the farm to the table."

He also praised the Quality Assurance Program begun in 1991 and now responsible for the certification of over 73,000 producers across the nation.

The management program has also spawned the Youth Quality Assurance Program for 4-H and FFA youth ages 8 to 21.

On the environmental front, Dotson said environmental management and odor abatement are the second-most important issues next to food safety facing producers today.

According to Dotson, if producers continue to push for their own, voluntary participation in the Quality Assurance Program, the industry could become self-regulating.

McKeith, a professor with the department of animal science at the University of Illinois, was the second speaker at Monday’s educational seminar.

McKeith zeroed in on how important quality is to today’s consumers, who recognized color, fat content and purge (or juice) packaging as key ingredients in their decision to purchase pork.

"The pork producers have done a tremendous job in reducing the fat content in their product," McKeith said. "If you look at the top hogs 10 years ago at the Barrow Show and compare them to today’s top hogs, there’s just no comparison at all. Today’s hogs are much more lean and have more quality than their predecessors."

Then it was Grimes’ turn to address the nation’s pork producers. Currently semi-retired, Grimes has earned a reputation as an outspoken observer of the nation’s pork industry from his University of Missouri college perch.

According to Grimes, producers need $40 per hundred-weight hogs to stay in business until 2002.

"At a minimum," he emphasized, but there would be many more opinions to be shared Monday afternoon.

He said contract production now represents 44 percent of the nation’s producers and their numbers are growing.

Spot market hogs now represent only 36 percent of those sold compared to 62 percent in 1994.

"If we keep this trend up, there will no longer be a spot market for hogs by 2005," Grimes predicted.

Vertical integration, involving packers/processors is growing, too, according to Grimes who pointed to the anticipated merger of Murphy Farms and Smithfield an indication of how the industry must weigh still another outside influence.

Grimes said his research shows there will be fewer pork operation owners and the industry itself will move geographically to user-friendly states with relaxed environmental regulations.

Perils await those who over-produce, and once again Grimes pointed to Murphy Farms in North Carolina as an example of a situation that saw more hogs being produced than slaughter capacity could handle there.

But independent producers share the blame for over-production according to Grimes, who said the number of hogs produced doubled from the 1930s to the 1960s and doubled again in the 1990s, when slaughter houses were closing and those left open couldn’t keep up with the hogs sent them for processing.

He blamed the downward cycle in prices over the last 18 months to over-production and a lack of slaughtering capacity as the meat packing industry restructured itself, plus the "inelasticity" of the demand for pork.

Grimes said the net imports of America now equal the net exports of the nation and that U.S. producers must continue to nurture all export possibilities; especially the one-half of all pork exports to Japan as well as healthy numbers to Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

As far as the record-low pork prices of 1998 and 1999, Grimes said, "This cannot be allowed to continue" and producers hold the key if they will only "heed the signals" of the industry.

Grimes said, "Producers didn’t heed the signals they were over-producing and continued to produce. Both independents and contractors."

On the subject of a possible national pork producers cooperative that would build and operate its own meat processing facilities, Grimes didn’t endorse the idea. Neither did he condemn it.

"It’s something that has to be looked into," he said in response to a producer’s question at the end of his presentation.