On the Minds of Pork Producers

Health challenges, marketing, technology and pork as an important protein are top of mind for the four producers who sat down with Chip Flory, host of “AgriTalk,” at World Pork Expo.

Aaron Juergens, an Iowa producer, points out the industry has been dealing with PRRS for 20-plus years and it always pops up at the worst possible time.

“We do our best practices daily, starting from the sow farm all the way to making sure we’re washing everything to having vets and caretakers on board and throwing everything at it to make it work,” he says. “There’s profitability today so you get throughput on every part of the operation.”

Chad Leman, who farms in central Illinois, says industry-wide, producers have been dealing with PRRS and PED in March, April and May, despite efforts to address the diseases.

“Despite all the biosecurity, we throw at these farms, we still struggle with it,” Leman says. “Our finishing barns are full, but they’re also full of more expensive weaned pigs than what we thought we were going to stock them with.”

One concept that could be part of the solution is gene editing and PRRS-resistant genetics. The technology is encouraging, but producers say there’s still more to learn.

“It sounds wonderful, and I think it could be part of the solution,” Juergens says. “But it’s really hard to say there’s going to be one magic bullet for the industry.”

Nathan Schroeder, who supports gene-editing technology, and says people usually fit into one of three groups — they’re either against it, 100% for it or somewhere in the middle and support the industry making progress.