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National Hog Farmer's Masters of the Pork Industry are professionals, entrepreneurs, and family-based men and women whose dedication and wisdom are sure to inspire young and old as they tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in an ever-changing, global pork industry. 2012 Master Craig Christensen is a pork producer, entrepreneur and restaurateur....More

National Hog Farmer's Masters of the Pork Industry are professionals, entrepreneurs, and family-based men and women whose dedication and wisdom are sure to inspire young and old as they tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in an ever-changing, global pork industry. 2012 Master Michael Ellis, a coal miner's son, turned his passion for livestock into a swine research career....More

National Hog Farmer's Masters of the Pork Industry are professionals, entrepreneurs, and family-based men and women whose dedication and wisdom are sure to inspire young and old as they tackle the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in an ever-changing, global pork industry. 2012 Master James Lowe, DVM, was driven to become a swine veterinarian so he could stay close to the farm....More

A couple of months ago, word came down that we would be moving from the third floor to a smaller space on the sixth floor in the same office building. Being a bit of a pack rat, I was faced with the daunting task of paring down the contents of a cache of filing cabinets to a “more manageable” number. So, for the last month or so, I set aside a few hours each week to pore through pork industry files that dated back to the early 1970s....More

Last week’s Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports provided some much-needed good news for livestock and poultry production costs going into the 2012-13 crop year. The WASDE contained USDA’s first official estimates of the coming crops and potential usage of those supplies....More

Voters keep saying they want the partisanship to end in Washington, DC, but in the last month they have voted to increase partisanship...More

More soybeans will be grown across the United States this year, but that increase will be dwarfed by the amount of soybeans that will be used and exported. The result is that U.S. soybean supplies will fall to a mere 16 days of inventory, according to American Farm Bureau Federation analysts....More

I don’t know about your house, but the Meyer household will be eating Domino’s pizza for the foreseeable future -- if not for the pizza (which is pretty good), then to reward the courage shown by Domino’s shareholders in rejecting a “request to study ending the use of pork from suppliers who confine pregnant pigs in crates.” The shareholders’ decision wasn’t a questionable one as 80% voted against the “request” and only 4% supported it. Sixteen percent of votes abstained. The company’s board of directors had also recommended that the request be rejected, saying that the issue should be settled between the company and producers and processors....More

USDA announced that the nation’s 100 largest agriculture cooperatives reported near-record revenue of $118 billion in 2010, an increase of 4% over 2009. Net income was $2.39 billion, an increase of more than 10%. The leading cooperatives were CHS Inc., Land O’Lakes, and Dairy Farmers of America....More

Thirty members of congress are asking USDA to correct the public record and educate consumers about the safety of lean, finely textured beef (LFTB)...More

The USDA’s Cold Storage report, released on Friday, clearly underscores the difficulties the beef and pork sectors faced in March as freezer inventories mounted for both species (Figure 1). Monthly stocks for each species and all meat and poultry can be found in Figure 2.  ...More

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has called on USDA to label mechanically tenderized beef products to “better protect” the public from foodborne illness...More