The Rural Voice, 1982-03, Page 241
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PG. 22k THE RURAL VOICE/MARCH 1982
VOICE OF A FARMER
Are hog farmers in trouble?
by Adrian Vos
For several years now, London based OMAF swine specialist
Andy Bunn has been producing an excellent newsletter for pork
producers in Ontario.
Some county pork associations have
cooperated with the ag. rep. in adding county
news and supplying mailing lists.
Since the cost of preparing the mailing by
the OMAF office is fairly high. Don Pullen.
the Huron county ag. rep., attached a form to
the letter asking producers if they wanted to
continue receiving the publication.
The result was disappointing, to put it
mildly. Of the original 2,400 letters mailed
previously, only 258 indicated they wanted
the letter. A good number of these are banks,
feed mills and other agri-businesses.
The information in the letter is priceless
and 1 for one can't understand why pork men
find this unimportant. The only explanation is that their income
from hogs is adequate and they don't see a need to upgrade their
efficiency.
If that is the case, Huron county farmers are exceptions and it is
high time they shared their secrets with other Ontario pork
producers.
Swine specialists who visit hundreds of pork men every year
find that the average litter size in Ontario is thirteen pigs per sow
per year. (P/S/Y). We know that there are many producers who
attain eighteen p/s/y on a regular basis, and exceptionally good
ones who get more than twenty p/s/y.
It is easy to see that there are a great number of pork producers
who get less than ten p/s/y.
At a farm finance seminar in Blyth. it was shown that a sow with
an annual production of eighteen pigs returns to the farmer $247
more than for a twelve p/s/y producer. In a fifty -sow herd that
means a difference of S12,356. But that doesn't seem to be a
problem for Huron county farmers.
At a herd health open agenda meeting one (1) producer showed
up. OMAF personnel went to great lengths to have consultants at
hand. but Huron producers apparently already knew the answers.
When Hiram Drache, a US lecturer spoke to the beef producers
in Ontario at several meetings across the province, he said that he
chalged $50 for every hour he consulted with a farmer and his
wife.
Just about every manufacturing business uses consultants to
advise on how to improve business and increase profits. But
farmers, who have free, or near free consulting services available
to them from the county offices of OMAF and from extension
services of universities, at least in Huron county, don't need
them.
While hog farmers in other counties are screaming fur help, to
the point of near civil disobedience, Huron is complacent in its
secure knowledge that no one can teach them anything.
We can only hope that they will show the same knowledge when
the question of changing the hog marketing system is discussed.
If they rely in that matter on information from daddy and
granddaddy, or from the farmer down the road, they could well be
saddled with a system they later find they can't live with.
Farmer/writer Adrian Vos likes to be provocative. "to make
people think... they don't have to agree". He welcomes
comment and suggested column topics from readers.