There’s a story shared in the Wolter family about a day when Bradley’s father, while fixing some hog fences, nailed his cloth diapers to a fence post just to keep track of him. Tale or true, the story reinforces Bradley Wolter’s early exposure to pigs and may help explain his lifelong ambition to build better hog production systems. Wolters is now chief operating officer at The Maschhoffs Inc., and serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois....More

At a time when the pork industries in most states are striving for stability, South Dakota State University (SDSU) Extension swine specialist Bob Thaler finds his state’s industry in the midst of a growth spurt of sorts....More

With deep-seated roots in the pork industry, Jim Meimann has taken a decidedly low profile in his responsibilities as senior vice president of governance and operations at the National Pork Board. “I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of guy,” he explains. But don’t let his mild manner fool you; he is passionate about making sure pork producers get their money’s worth from their checkoff investments. He serves as the National Pork Board’s point person in their dealings with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the government arm that oversees Pork Checkoff programs and spending....More

The Canadian hog industry is back to recovery mode. Those who have weathered the drought are ready to take on new markets.“When you look at the big picture, the industry has been incredibly resilient,” notes Kevin Grier, senior analyst with the George Morris Centre, in Guelph, Ontario. The Canadian pork industry is about 25% smaller than it was in 2004, but the industry that survived is very competitive....More

National Hog Farmer has been following the developing story behind the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) multiple disclosures to anti-agriculture activist organizations of thousands of records including the personal information of agriculture producers. This week, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) requested an explanation from Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe regarding the release of private information protected by federal law, and asked how the agency plans to ensure the disclosed private information will not be used by outside organizations....More

This is the 80th monthly column written for National Hog Farmer’s Weekly Preview. This monthly exercise has forced us to look at production data in new ways and to dig deeper into our database. We have learned a great deal in this process. As a result, we have written a new Swine Management Services (SMS) benchmarking program that incorporates some of the knowledge we have gained over the last four years. This new program will retain everything that is in the current farm benchmarking program, plus new parity benchmarking reports and charts....More

Redoubling efforts to retrieve data on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) illegally sent to environmental activist groups in February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a second letter this past week. The first letter sought to retrieve the previously issued data and resend in a redacted form. The latest letter seeks to retrieve the redacted information and replace it with new, further redacted information as EPA recognized that their release still contained significant amounts of private data....More

An Iowa State University (ISU) Extension swine veterinarian says with county fair swine shows just a few weeks away, exhibitors and fair participants should take precautions to decrease health risks for animals and people involved in these events....More

Feral swine are not native to the United States. They are a cross between feral domestic swine introduced by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and the Eurasian boar, blogs Gail Keirn of USDA’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service. Feral swine have been called the “rototillers” of nature. Their longs snouts and tusks allow them to rip and root their way across America in search of food. Unfortunately, the path they leave behind impacts ranchers, farmers, land managers, conservationists, and suburbanites alike....More

U.S. pork production in 2014 is forecast to increase by 2.3%, driven primarily by lower feed costs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook released Thursday. USDA projects that commercial pork production will climb to 24 billion pounds in 2014. Farrowings are expected to rise modestly (almost 1% compared to 2013), accompanied by about a 1% increase in litter rates and higher average dressed weights (about 1% higher than 2013), which altogether are expected to set another pork production record in 2014....More