Behind the Lines - April 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Three industry leaders, three different decisions.
As the pork industry goes through unparalleled turmoil, producers are having to make unparalleled, and difficult, decisions. For this issue's cover story, writer Don Stoneman spoke to three industry leaders who made three different choices about their future as pork producers. This story, profiling the times of producers Bob Hunsberger, Phil Anwender and Gilbert Vanden Heuvel, starts on page 6.
Why these three producers? They've all been industry leaders. Hunsberger is a founding member and serves on the board of Progressive Pork Producers. He will continue to produce pork on a smaller scale so, even though he has sold the last of his sows, we haven't heard the last of him.
Anwender has been honoured for making substantial contributions to the industry, serving on Ontario Pork's competitiveness committee and chairing its safety nets committee. He's getting out of pork production in Ontario, but promises to return when the markets are better.
Vanden Heuvel, a former president of the Liquid Swine Feeders Association, plans to stay in. Last fall, the management team at his barn near Goderich won a "PRRS survival award" from the Ontario Pork Industry Council's Swine Health Advisory Board.
All three producers are adept at using numbers to see where they stand. They also represent different age groups.
Nearly two years ago, Ken McEwan, an agricultural economist at Ridgetown College, surveyed pork producers to get a picture in time of an industry already under stress from costly disease outbreaks but before the current economic crisis struck. More than half of the producers who received a detailed questionnaire filled it out.
As surveys go, the response rate was astonishing. The findings were published just over a year ago and were highly revealing. The mainstay of the Ontario pork industry remains the farrow-to-finish operator. Judging by age, many producers are likely in the second half of their careers.
Vanden Heuvel, the newest of the three to decision-making in pork production, tells us that in these tough times going to the gym regularly helps him to stay optimistic. So does hanging out with positive young producers. He thinks that technology is going to help smaller operators have the best of both large and small producer worlds.
Thinking about closing down your barn temporarily as Anwender has done? Paul Luimes, professor and animal and poultry science at the University of Guelph's Ridgetown Campus has a check list. Closing things down right can make it a lot easier to start up again when market conditions are more conducive. That story starts on page 22.
ROBERT IRWIN