Second Look: When producers stop three feet from the gold

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Getting expert advice and planning a strategy can help you avoid making bad decisions when times get tough

by RICHARD SMELSKI

Napoleon Hill, in his book "Think and Grow Rich," recalls the following story that would be so appropriate to the pig industry:

An uncle of R.U. Darby was caught by the "gold fever" in the gold-rush days and went to Colorado to dig and grow rich. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the Earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel.

The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite. After weeks of labour, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore, but he needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Maryland, and then told his relatives and a few neighbours of the "strike." They got together money for the needed machinery and had it shipped to the location. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved that they had one of the richest mines in Colorado. A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts and then would come the big killing in profits.

Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened. The vein of gold ore disappeared. They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again - all to no avail. Finally, they decided to quit.

They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some junk men may be dumb, but not this one. He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating.

The engineer advised that the project had failed because the owners were not familiar with "fault lines." His calculations showed that the vein would be found just three feet from where the Darbys had stopped drilling and that is exactly where it was found. The junk man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.

The story goes on that Darby paid back every dollar he borrowed, although he was years in doing so. He went on to make his fortunes, albeit not in the gold business. Darby profited from the experience and became a huge success in the life insurance business.

How does this story relate to the pig industry? Being a "senior" in the business, I can recall many doomsayers saying such things as "the packers are going to own our business", "the Americans don't want our pigs", "we are going to end up working for the big guys", "unless the government does something." Likewise, many diseases were going to end our business such as foreign animal diseases, transmissible gastro enteritis circo virus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, atrophic rhinitis.

My first encounter with Mycoplasma pleuropneumonia was catastrophic. I specifically remember a producer in Seaforth saying that it had taken him years to build this operation and that he was going to lose his farm in months because of this dreadful disease. Now Mycoplasma pleuropneumonia is unheard of, as are many of the doomsayer forecasts.

How many operations that folded were three months from a market change? As a result of these disasters in the industry, many producers stopped three feet from the gold and made their fortunes in other fields. Others studied the situation, planned a strategy and continue to mine gold. Yet others continue to mine, always three feet from the gold! BP

Former Ontario government swine specialist Richard Smelski most recently served as general manager of Ontario Swine Improvement Inc.