DES MOINES, Iowa Pork producers from across the country gather this week in the capital city of Iowa as some dark clouds hang over the industry.
In a tradition since 1988, the National Pork Producers Council kicked off the World Pork Expo with a presentation of its "unwavering commitment" to the U.S. pork industry.
NPPC CEO Bryan Humphreys said one of council's jobs is to help minimize the risk and uncertainty that are inherent with pig farming. He highlighted some recent wins in that effort.
"For the last year, our policy successes have helped keep producers and their farms running and provided some certainty and clarity," Humphreys said, including supporting Sackett vs. Environmental Protection Agency, which greatly curtailed the agency's authority to regulate certain wetlands under the Clean Waters Act. "We secured new trade access for U.S. pork products in India, Nigeria, in addition to reducing tariffs in Vietnam."
He also added that NPPC has lobbied Congress for the support, renewal and expansion of key farm bill programs that protect the pork industry, and lead nearly 60 organizations in support of the reintroduction of the Beagle Brigade Act. (The Beagle Brigade is a dog workforce trained to detect fruits, vegetables, and meats that could be a threat to US agriculture.
Duane Stateler, vice president of the NPPC board of directors, said the recent SCOTUS decision on WOTUS which has been in the works since the Obama administration was a major win for U.S. pork producers.
"We've always felt that it was an encroachment of waters of the United States to where a puddle out in the middle of 640 acres could all of a sudden be classified as a wetland," Stateler said. "I think sometimes people forget that those of us in agriculture were the originals of conservation, and it has been brought on to us by our forefathers."
For Stateler, a fifth-generation farmer, conservation was taught to him by his grandfather and he's continued to pass on those lessons to the sixth and seventh generations now on his family's farm.
"We don't get water from a tap that is cleaned at a city filtration plant our water comes from our underground wells, so we have to make sure that we take care of the ground, because we've been drinking that water, and our grandchildren drink that water," he said. "So it's nice to see that rule drawn back to where we can continue to operate as usual."
Dark road ahead
After hitting on successes for the pork industry in the past year, Humphreys addressed what he called "the elephant in the room" Prop 12.
Scott Hays, president of the board of NPPC, said the market share of California represents 15% to 16% of the domestic pork consumption.
"So it's a very large market, and obviously, we need that market," Hays said. "And as far as exports, it would be a challenge right now to to get that much product through the export channels with some of the trade barriers that we face."
The decision on Prop 12 comes at a time when Stateler said U.S. pork producers are losing "$25 to $40 a pig."
"It's been 25 years since we've seen a market like this," he said.
That much loss is puzzling to industry insiders, said Stateler.
"We can't understand why the market hasn't recovered, because our futures market is up and our cutout market is there, but our cash market is lagging $20 behind," Stateler said.
He said the cost of everything that goes into raising pigs has gone up, including the feed and the fuel, and farmers aren't in the same position as corporations contributing disproportionately to inflation.
"That's the sad part of agriculture whether we're a pork producer, beef producer, or we're a corn or soybean grower we rely on what the market sets for us," he said. "We don't get to say, we'd like to take a 7% profit, and put it on there."
Stateler said pre-pandemic, the pork industry market would fluctuate in the same 18-month cycle. It would go up for six months, down for six months, and back up again for six months.
"For our industry, unfortunately, when we run into this long period of a distressed market, the producers we normally lose are the smaller producers," he said. "It's what everybody's afraid of, but that's just a natural occurrence, and we've avoided that for almost 25 years. So we'll see how that comes through this, but our producers are hurting, whether you're big or small. There's only so long that you can sustain a poor market environment, before financial distress comes in."