Unless something really terrible happens, this will be my last column for National Hog Farmer. Of course, that was supposed to be the case back in July but my wife tells me I have thus far failed miserably at retirement. I fully intend to do better some Oct. 1.

Thank you to all of you faithful readers. I have received many kind comments and a few not-so-kind ones over the years but all have been honest and for the most part very well though out. That is to say I deserved some of the not so kind ones! 

This relationship goes back a long way. Shortly after I began my private consulting company, Paragon Economics, Dale Miller asked me to do a weekly column for NHF’s new E-newsletter.  You can never fully appreciate the honor that I felt in National Hog Farmer magazine asking me to write for it! NHF had been my connection to the commercial hog business as an Oklahoma FFA member in the early 1970s. We raised some purebreds and show pigs but this magazine was my connection to the commercial business. And now it wanted me to write for it. Wow. I’m not sure that meant I had arrived but it was certainly flattering.

I did it every week for many years before NHF transitioned to a rotation of writers. That was a good move. You deserve more than one opinion about your business. And you will continue to get that along with a new one when Dr. Lee Schulz takes my spot in October. Believe me, your knowledge level will explode!

The pork world is vastly different today versus what it was when I started advising producers on economic matters in 1993. That applies to on the farm as well as off.  When I started the holy grail of farm productivity was 20 pigs raised per sow per year and very few farms were reaching that level. Today, of course, growing numbers of farms and systems are achieving 30 pigs per sow per year and even more are possible and will likely be required to be economically successful.  

In 1993, a pig yielding 50% lean was a very good one indeed. Today that figure is attained by virtually all market hogs and that change has impacted the cost of production profoundly since lean hogs are far more efficient. 

But these, and many other, marks of accomplishment do not happen without their own challenges. Making hogs lean without paying much attention to the quality of that lean has left us with some consumer acceptance challenges. Would those be lessened if people just knew how to cook pork? Of course. But laying blame on one’s customers is a very short-sighted practice. Those customers are looking for someone to solve their problems and the onus to do so falls on pig producers and processors, plain and simple.

Productivity is, to me, a moral imperative: As responsible stewards of God’s endowment, we must always accomplish more with the fewest possible resources. Fulfilling that charge, however, is not without economic consequences. You can’t collectively solve those but you can make decisions recognizing their existence and you must do so.

Finally, consider a story told by former NPPC president Jerry King. It was the mid-1990s and someone was lamenting the impact that all of these outsiders were having one “how we do things” in the pig production segment. I can’t recall Jerry’s exact words but they were along these lines? “We need to remember that things change and we have to change with them.” The meeting was in some hotel meeting room that looked like a million other hotel meeting rooms and Jerry went on: “Just a few years ago, no one would have thought a thing about me lighting up a cigarette in this meeting. In fact, some would have been offended if I didn’t offer them a cigarette as I lit my own. But that is not the way things are now and they are never going back to those old standards.”

As one who has never smoked and really hated the smell of it I could easily add “Thank goodness!” to Jerry’s story. Not everyone thought that was progress back then even though most everyone would now agree that it indeed was.

No one likes someone else telling them what to do. Especially if the teller is not directly involved in the activity in question. But society now believes it has that right and we aren’t going back to the day when we could cross our arms, stomp our feet and scream “You aren’t the boss of me!” 

That’s not to say we just go along to get along because we are still responsible for those animals. And for the people we serve. There is somewhere a way to satisfy all reasonable parties and it is imperative that we make a good faith effort to see that happens. We will never satisfy everyone but at the end of the day I hope you all can look at the man or woman in the mirror and know that you have done your best to take care of God’s creations, including most importantly His most precious creation.

Thank you for allowing me to participate in that quest. It will never end but I wish you success in its pursuit.