This week the Grand Concourse of the Iowa State Fairgrounds is eerily quiet.

Normally, it would be buzzing with voices of old and new friends talking of technology, markets and outlooks, while the smells of pork cooked dozens of ways drift through the air. Instead, those who usually attend the World Pork Expo find themselves in their offices or traveling to other locales to meet industry stakeholders.The Expo was cancelled this year out of concern that international visitors might unintentionally bring the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus with them.

Still this week, the “other side” of the fairgrounds is buzzing with because it was determined that the livestock show would go on. Youth from all over the country are displaying the best-of-the-best show pigs in the country.

Two sides of a fairgrounds. Two sides of an industry. And this week, the stark contrast between the two has never been more pronounced.

Like a lot of people working in agriculture and the meat industry, I grew up showing livestock. The lessons that I learned from that experience - responsibility, stockmanship, competitiveness -- have served me well in my career.

As a professional adult, I’ve worked in livestock procurement for some of the largest, most efficient packing plants in the country. Every year, we would discuss and wring our hands over whether to buy “show pigs” when they were ready to harvest. Every year, our teams decided the risk was too great. Past experiences with a few bad actors ruined it for everyone else, and a few instances of residues in pork products put a black mark on the whole group.

There’s a disconnect in the fact that the side of the industry that got so many of us excited about working with livestock as children isn’t as openly embraced and celebrated by those of us now on the commodity side as adults. The work ethic, the understanding of animal care and welfare, and the knowledge of what it takes to successfully raise a healthy animal from birth to adulthood, instilled in many of us a lifelong passion in animal agriculture.

If working in commodity pork is compared to major league baseball, the show animal community is both literally and figuratively our farm team. It’s where the next generation of meat industry leaders will come from. Shouldn’t we be investing, supporting and growing that system so we’re positioned for success in 10 years? 20 years?

It is difficult to ascertain exactly the size of the show pig portion of the industry, but by looking at active membership in breed associations and registration of purebred sows, one can pretty easily surmise that the combined sow herd producing hogs for exhibition purposes is close to 120,000 head. To put this in perspective, it’s a number that would put the show pig sow herd into the Top 10 of Successful Farming’s annual Pork Powerhouse List.

Today, our industry - yes, ALL of us - faces one of the biggest threats we have ever seen in ASF. It has the potential to catastrophically impact every pig farmer in the United States, from the very largest integrated pork production systems to those youth who have invested significant time and dollars in their own small herds. Considerable time and effort will be spent on education and awareness about ASF during The Exposition as well as all summer shows and fairs.

In addition to the mutual threat of ASF, I would suggest that the commercial and show pig industries have other areas of common ground:

1) Intense focus on animal health and biosecurity to produce a safe, unadulterated product for both domestic and export markets

2) Need for adequate pigs to run plants efficiently/need to get pigs harvested

3) Leadership and talent development for the future of our industry

My challenge to all involved is: How do we unite both sides of our industry? What will it take to get the packing industry to once again embrace pigs raised by youth exhibitors and process them in the same plants where commercial pigs are harvested?

How can we show these young people that there’s an industry behind them that wants to see them succeed, and keep their passion for animal ag and a possible interest in a career in this field alive?

Better together: Facing African swine fever easier as united pork industry

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