noview

In Kansas City for the Pork Industry Forum (PIF), the annual joint meeting of the National Pork Producers Council and the National Pork Board. From this meeting you’ll be hearing presentations and interviews at SwineCast.com.

The pork industry has seen a rebound in prices of late (thankfully) and a re-focusing of strengths to challenge immediate threats. A recent program features Elite Pork’s Dr. Craig Rowles as one voice asking legislators to protect our access to the tools which ensure our animal’s well-being and productivity.

Adding your voice to those already being heard in Washington is a priority in 2010. Do not delay.

Winter has for many years meant Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) breaks. This year at several midwestern conferences there are efforts to use the reduction in swine numbers as a base to work a PRRS eradication effort into place. Empty houses simplify depop-repop programs.

Two major state swine conferences coming up in the next couple of weeks and SwineCast is joining a premier list of program sponsors to bring you the presentations, conversations, and analysis. These important educational opportunities will be posted at SwineCast.com in the days following the Minnesota Pork Congress and the Iowa Pork Congress.

Be looking for us at these meetings and throughout the year as we continue to bring you conversations, photos and presentations from the gathering places for the U.S. Swine industry.

We’re pumped to share presentations from the recent Swine Forecast 2010 virtual conference this week in your email update. This program brings together speakers and groups of swine producers around the U.S. and Canada to share concerns and questions in a timely and forthright fashion. You’ll get the skinny from bankers on access to capital, market updates from Dr. Steve Meyer and a look behind the curtain in the packer/retail area of the industry.

There has been much discussion focused on PRRS eradication at recent swine health meetings. Ideally, the goal should be to eliminate this fierce killer of unborn pigs from the U.S. entirely. This week, two programs will be looking at what it might take to accomplish this goal.

I’ll be in Chicago for the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS Symposium which precedes the International PRRS Symposium as part of the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases. These high-level, international gatherings bring the best and brightest to bear on the PRRS issue. We’ll have interviews and presentations available for you on the discussion next week.

Also, the presentations from Swine Forecast 2010 go online at SwineCast.com this coming Dec 9. Great overviews of several segments affecting swine production. If you missed the live webinar, you don’t want to miss this replay.

Mark Greenwood
April 2009