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With Iowa pork producers experiencing
a severe economic situation, the Iowa Pork Producers Association
is making sure consumers in the U.S. and around the world continue
to keep pork on the table.
IPPA has embarked on an aggressive
campaign to promote pork products and increase exports of pork
to foreign countries.
"We want producers to know
the association will continue to do all it can to help move as
much pork as possible on the supply side during these challenging
times," said Dave Moody, IPPA president and a pork producer
from Nevada.
A group of 17 Iowa pork producers
and IPPA staff traveled to Miami, Fla., in March to promote pork
at 10 stores of a local Hispanic grocery store chain and at the
largest Hispanic festival in the country. More than 16,000 pork
chop sandwiches were grilled and handed out in one day at the
event, attended by an estimated 1.4 million people.
IPPA is an official sponsor at
the Iowa Speedway in Newton and pork will be front and center
at each racing event this summer through billboards and public
address announcements, as well as the concession stands. Through
a partnership with Culver's, ground pork and bacon burgers will
be grilled and sold at each of the nine speedway events from
April through September.
Iowa producers also will be participating
in the National Pork Board's new mobile marketing tour this year.
IPPA will promote pork at 15 of the events on "The Other
White Meat Tour" from Washington, D.C., to Albuquerque,
N.M. between June and October.
IPPA also promoted pork at different
sporting events across the state this winter and will be participating
in major promotions with Hy-Vee and Fareway food stores this
summer.
Delegations of IPPA leaders have
teamed with the Iowa Department of Economic Development on missions
to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Mexico in the past two
months in an attempt to ratchet up pork exports to those nations.
The pork industry is facing it's
most difficult period in the last decade. After three-and-a-half
years of profits, hog farmers have been losing an average of
$30 per hog sold since last fall and the situation isn't expected
to improve anytime soon. Record fuel prices, $6 a bushel corn
and $13 a bushel soybean prices have combined to make it difficult
for many producers to continue raising hogs.
"The situation is not good
and with recent reports on pork inventories and forecast crop
plantings this spring, no one is being led to believe the market
is heading in a direction to make things better," Moody
said.
Contributing to the current challenges
are record numbers of hogs going to market and most experts don't
expect the needed herd reduction to reverse the current downturn
until sometime next year.
Iowa State University livestock
economist John Lawrence said earlier this year that pork producers
need to evaluate their market weight strategies to help reduce
supply. "The most profitable weight at which to sell is
when the additional cost of the next pound is equal to the revenue
of that pound," he said.
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