UNITED STATES-PORK PRODUCTION SHOULD IMPROVE.
Pork producers are determined to emerge from tough times and to become better producers.
There are still tough times facing hog farmers, but North Carolina producer Don Butler, newly ascended to the presidency of the National Pork Producers Council, is hopeful.
"We’ve been through a very difficult year-and-a-half, but we will emerge from this and we will emerge from it a strong industry," Butler told Brownfield at the conclusion of the National Pork Industry Forum in Dallas, "and I’m excited about it."
Butler succeeds Ohio’s Bryan Black as NPPC President.
In view of the greater attention drawn to environmental concerns and to animal wellbeing, National Pork Board president Steve Weaver says the checkoff organization resolved that future decision makers at the National Pork Industry Forum will have to "walk to the walk."
Any delegates [that] come to Forum have to be PQA Plus certified," Weaver said in an interview with Brownfield, "we can’t just say it would be nice to do; they have to do that."
Weaver, a producer from Elk Grove, California, begins his second year leading the National Pork Board.
Sam Carney of Adair, Iowa is the new NPPC President Elect and Lancaster, Wisconsin producer Doug Wolf is the new NPPC vice president.