Pork production is part 'of the solution'

Tuesday Jun 15 2010
by Rod Smith, Feedstuffs

It once was that as people drove through the countryside, they would see pigs in the barnyards and fields, but then producers put a roof over their pigs to keep them sheltered from the rain and then walls around their pigs to keep them sheltered from the cold and heat and other natural factors.

So today, as people drive through the countryside they do not see any pigs and "the good job that we are doing with our animals." 

This was how Malcolm DeKryger opened a presentation to reporters at the WPX this week, saying his company, Belstra Milling in Demotte, Ind., found a means to let people see what it's doing with its pigs.

Belstra, a family-owned multiplier for PIC with five multiplication farms and 11,500 sows and with customers from the Midwest to the Southeast, "reaches out and touches people in a number of ways," DeKryger, the company's vice president, said. In doing so, he said, "we needed to engage people" in Belstra's operations.

He noted that the five leading pork-consuming regions are in Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.; Los Angeles, Cal.; Houston, Texas, and Phoenix, Ariz. He quizzed reporters about how many people in those regions have ever seen a pig.

Accordingly, Belstra set aside one of the company's multipliers, Iroquois Valley Swine Breeders LLC, for public tours, with windows on the farrowing, nursery and finishing barns that people can look through to see how the farm's pigs are being cared for.

DeKryger said the Iroquois message is that pigs can be raised by anyone and everyone in backyards, but the point is should pigs be raised that way or "by professionals in the country." That message resonates with policymakers and visitors, he said.

"We are demonstrating that we are part of the solution" to food production and feeding hungry people, he said.

Iroquois Valley has hosted people from throughout Chicago and northwestern Indiana, DeKryger said, including "foodies" from Chicago, as well as culinary specialists. "It blows them away" when they look into the barns and see what's happening, and many return with colleagues and friends, he said.

"It's a great prototype for the other four metropolitan regions, he suggested.

Belstra also has a streaming video web site, www.RealPigFarm.com, at which people can watch what's happening in its various barns. "It's boring, but it shows people that we are not sadistic and beating our pigs," he said.

DeKryger said anyone can conduct tours, including barn workers, and no questions are off limits.

The central theme is that "you can't eat without farmers, and you can't eat meat without us," he said. "We are part of the solution."

(6/11/2010)
Rod Smith

Special coverage from the World Pork Expo (WPX) in Des Moines, Iowa, June 9-11.




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