Iowa high school agriculture students braved cold, stormy weather at the 2nd Iowa Pork Youth 101 Spring Conference in Ames. The host for this year's educational pork conference was the staff of the Iowa State Meats Laboratory on the campus of Iowa State University. The conference was sponsored by the Iowa Pork Producers Association Youth Committee and the Iowa Pork Industry Center in Ames.

"The IPPA Youth Committee offers two Pork Youth 101 conferences each year where we offer educational pork workshops to students that hope to continue or start a career within the Iowa pork industry," said Alison Dreeszen, IPPA marketing and programs director. "We hope to keep building the agenda for these conferences to offer the most educational workshops for our Iowa Pork Youth Ambassadors."

Nearly 30 students from the state's vocational agriculture classes attended day-long workshops, geared toward pork harvesting and carcass fabrication and evaluation, March 31. The workshops also were attended by several parents and high school vocational agriculture teachers. Other topics of the workshops and presentations offered by ISU Meats Laboratory staff members were: food safety, retail products, label reading and ingredient statements. Participants also were given a tour of the ISU Meats Laboratory, which is a federally inspected USDA facility.

The young students received a variety of hands-on experience throughout the day. The day started off with evaluation of a pork carcass and measuring leanness and fat percentage of the pig. After that, the students learned how to safely prepare meat products for cooking and how to read a meat thermometer. Participants then donned white lab coats and hair nets on a tour of the ISU Meats Laboratory, where they visited the harvest floor, coolers, meat processing rooms and meat smoking facilities. Students then assisted Dr. Joe Cordray, professor of animal science at ISU, with dissecting a pork carcass and then had to correctly label the different cuts of meat. Dr. Cordray also informed students about meat labels at different retail outlets and packaging ham. ISU graduate research assistant Sherry Olsen then visited with the students on pork harvesting at pork processing facilities.

"We were very excited to have this year's conference at such an esteemed venue as the ISU Meats Lab," Dreeszen said. "This is just another example of the great educational avenues that we have available to us, like the facilities at Iowa State University, to reach out to future leaders of the pork industry."