Transparency, Activism, and Problem Solving

(On the farm- an 1830's barn, a hog house, and a new barn across the road)

Next week, I am going to speak at the Tri-State Sow Housing Conference.  I am to be on a panel of producers speaking on the transition to group housing, you can read about our farm moving pigs inside from outside pastures in many of my previous posts.  I am pretty sure my experiences will be unique on the panel, since the other producers are transitioning from stalled systems.  It's exciting to meet with other farmers and hear about their challenges and innovations in our new systems.

Today I was informed that some animal activist groups have registered members for the conference.  In an effort for transparency, the conference has decided to welcome them, and address any questions they have, while trying to keep things civil between the parties.  I know that the panel I am speaking on may be a point of interest for for the activists, so I am fully aware that that I may be faced with some tough ethical questions.  I have been in those situations before, and while it is hard, I feel like I can present myself and my industry as caring and responsible.

That being said, I am afraid.  I am scared of what one person's bad experience with agriculture can do to my family, my community. Someday, something I write may cause somebody to find my farm and try to ruin what we have worked so hard to build. One video, one accusation, (even if it is unfounded) is enough to bring the farm to a screeching halt. Once somebody puts something bad out about the farm, it spreads like a disease. If I am doing something wrong, I absolutely want to be made aware, and I want to fix it.  I don't even care about people knowing that I messed up.  However, I don't want to be accused of not caring for the animals.  I know there are things that can be improved on the farm, but I am doing the best I can with the information I have.  I hold my coworkers to the standards set in place by our vets, packers, Pork Board, audits, and consumers.  I fill out the necessary documentation.  I can't promise that nothing bad has ever happened on the farm, but I can say with full confidence that everyday we become better at raising pigs.  Part of getting better is learning from past mistakes.  I am in no way saying we tolerate abuse, but what we know to be abuse now was not considered as such 25 years ago.  We listened, learned, and changed our practices; we will continue to change.

People in the United States are entitled to their own beliefs, and can make choices on the goods and services they purchase based on any parameters they choose.  I am not offended by people who follow their convictions even if I don't agree with them.  I write about my experiences- not trying to be right or wrong, but to explain my perspective.  I want to listen to what others have to say about production agriculture and learn from our conversations.  The people who push you to grow aren't those that put you down, but those that challenge you to aim higher.  I want to be part of the solution, and throwing around blame does not solve anything.  To really make agriculture better, we have to identify our problems and channel our energy towards fixing them.

 

3 Things Shared with Rep Justin Amash

(From L to R: Me, Rep Justin Amash, Jordan Bush, Dad (Bruce), Brian, & Kallie)

Since I last wrote, we have been moving forward battling the PRRS, but in happier and more exciting news we had a special visitor- Congressman Justin Amash and his staff-person,  Jordan Bush.  Justin is in the US House of Representatives representing the district where I live.  He came out to the farm while touring around the state before heading back to Washington.  We were able to sit down and talk about his voting record, our concerns in the agriculture sector, and look at the farm while answering any questions he had about agriculture.  It was an informative visit for both sides, and we enjoyed hosting them.

During the visit we were able to talk about Country of Origin Labeling (COOL), Antibiotic use and regulation, nutrition, community impact, Animal Care, Federal Road Funding, the continuation of agriculture as an industry in the USA, and Depreciation on new buildings.  All of these things are being handled in Federal legislation right now, and we were able to learn about how each of these issues are addressed by committees. Justin and Jordan were so excited about the farm that we showed them all around, even going in the hog barns (most tours do go in the barn, but when a Representative's next stop is a college campus, he usually doesn't want to be smelling of farm).   This isn't something that happens everyday, so we took the opportunity and tried to use it well by really sharing with each other.

The top 3 things we shared with Justin Amash:

1.  COOL has a lot of unintended consequences.  Specifically, when Canadians raise hogs or other livestock, they become less valuable, since slaughter plants in the US have to have separate kills for each country.  Many US farms have Canadian branches, and now have a hard time getting their hogs sold in the US, and at less value.  Just today Canada and Mexico are supporting a tariff on US goods in retaliation.  
2. Federal Funding has to be "real."  Representative Amash hasn't always voted the way that Farm Bureau, or some farmers would like, but he doesn't like to vote for things that don't have realistic funding.  For example, the Federal Road work was slated to be funded by "better tax collection" in the bill, so he voted no.   The money simply wouldn't be there, so the bill would be unsupported.
3. Nutrition is huge.  Both Justin and Jordan were surprised at how much nutrition played into the farm.  With 70% of production costs being feed, we put a lot of time and effort into making sure we are feeding pigs the right things at the right time to minimize costs and promote healthy growth.  We have a full time nutritionist who just worries about how we can make our feed better for the pigs, which is a good thing for the farm's bottom line.

These visits are so important for us and for our representatives, and have over an hour of one-on-one time with somebody who makes our country's decisions is a rare treat.  Any opportunity we have at the farm to talk to government officials we try to make as valuable as possible.  It's important to be open to having a conversation, and not just lodging complaints; both sides will get more value.  

British Invasion

June has been a busy month for me, and I haven't kept to my writing as well as I had this spring.  In the last month, we had a British visitor stay at the farm, James.  He came to canoe race, and we had a fantastic time entertaining him for the week.

(James, left,  Racing with Weston in New York)

While James was here, we had the chance to learn some fun new British phrases.  Everything is either "brilliant" or "quite nice."  It seems to make everything more optimistic when you phrase it like that, so I can see why people who live in such a rainy part of the world would use this language.

I also learned a little bit of cockney, although I will probably get it wrong in the explaining.  Cockney is a dialect that has some interesting slang.  "I'll check up the apples" means that you will go up the stairs.  How does apples equal stairs?  Apparently Apples & Pears go together, and pears rhymes with stairs, so you replace stairs with apples, and it makes it sense.  It's kind of a fun code, although I would have to spend so long figuring it out what everything meant that it wouldn't be very efficient.

Our favorite phrase of the week was "loo roll," which is toilet paper.  We liked that one so much, that it has stuck, and become part of the Barton lexicon.  

While James was here, I took an afternoon to show him around the farm.  He isn't involved in livestock agriculture in the UK, but I was eager to hear what he thought of the farm, since the British consumer has different ideas on animal husbandry practices than an American consumer.  We looked at everything, from the feed mill, the shop, breeding, birthing, growing, marketing, and crops.  We talked about training, handling, growth phases, farm smell, and working conditions.  Usually, I can get a pretty good idea about someone's thoughts on a farm just by watching their body language and comfort, but really wanted to hear what James thought about our farm.

 He was surprised by how clean our facilities were, and how quietly the pigs behaved. Probably what stuck with me most was when James commented on how beyond everything, the farm needed to function as a successful business.  It surprised me, coming from someone my own age, who is from a country with very specific animal care standards would see farms as a business, and not be appalled by them.  This isn't an opinion I hear from my American peers who come from large cities.  Even my college roommates, all who have grown up in rural areas, lived with me, and toured the farm, are very skeptical of farms in the United States.  I am sure James' opinion is not reflective of all, but it was nice to take some one on a tour who genuinely wanted to learn.

Hearing what James had to say about the farm, I realized that I had made some judgments about his background that weren't true.  I thought he would see my farm a certain way, and he surprised me by being more open than I expected.  I am sure this isn't a mistake that I alone have made.  Even though I was nervous about what he would say, I gave him a tour of my farm, I was open and honest when answering questions.  We talked about things that we struggle with on the farm, and struggles of the industry in general.  In the end, I felt like we had an understanding and respect for each other.  


In other news, we have had huge rains for the past few weeks, and the corn (as well as the river) is very high!

(a little taller than knee high)

Good Production Practice: Using Antibiotics Responsibly

(New Barn Progress- pouring the floor)

In my last post on good production practices, I went into how our farm uses antibiotics to treat pigs when they are sick.  Antibiotics are part of how we take care of our animals.  However, that isn't the only way that we mange our hog health.  There are 5 areas we look at to responsibly manage our antibiotic use.  These steps will change in the coming years, as regulation changes.

First, we do what we can to use less antibiotics.  This means cleaning boots, clothes, and gloves.  We don't want to wear a pair of boots with one group of animals, and then drive over to another group and spread bacteria from the first group.  We also clean and disinfect barns and trucks between groups of pigs.  If I am going to see pigs in the same barn, I start with the youngest ones first, so I don't track bugs from the oldest pigs down to the youngest ones.

Next, when a pig gets sick we treat it.  After it is treated, we look to see if there is any interference that is causing the sickness.  Did the barn get to warm and muggy? Did some of the bird netting at the top of the barn come down, and allow the birds and pigs to have contact?  Did the pigs run out of feed or water for part of a day?  Is something in the barn broken? In a perfect world, none of these things happen, but in reality, little problems occur all of the time.  Once we identify the cause of the sickness, we can be a lot more proactive in preventing it.

When deciding whether or not to use an antibiotic, we have to see if it makes sense.  For example. a virus like PEDv wouldn't respond to an antibiotic treatment.  Trying to treat it with an antibiotic would be throwing money away.  When choosing to use an antibiotic, we have to make sure there is a measurable gain- this can be less pigs die from a disease, or improved performance, at such a rate that it justifies the cost of the drug.

As you probably know, most our pigs are raised from 60 lbs. to market weight in an Amish barn.  If a pig is starting to show signs of getting sick, the Amish barn manager has to make a decision on what to do.  All of the barn managers are trained at the company, state, and industry levels on how to handle antibiotics.  They are provided with information on storage, dosage, length of use, withdrawal times, and on how to keep accurate treatment records for best traceability.

What our barn managers aren't doing is diagnosing illnesses.  We leave that to the universities and veterinarians.  By working with our vets and diagnostic labs, we can make the most informed decisions on how to best care for our animals.  Sometimes a barn will be diagnosed with a disease in a few pigs that never really breaks into the whole barn. The manager will store the antibiotics until they need them for another outbreak, (returning them would violate our cleaning standards) or if we do not need them again and they expire, we will dispose of them per our vet's guidelines.

These five areas help us to manage our herd health responsibly.  In five years, I know that these guidelines will change due to changing consumer preferences on antibiotic use in production agriculture, and that doesn't really bother me.  I try to do the best I can with the tools I have, however, if I ignore alternatives to antibiotics, or consumer preferences, the farm will not make it very far.  Moving forward, we have to look at what opportunities are out there to make pork production better- for the people and the pigs.  


 

Farm Update: Big Projects

I haven't written much about what is going on right now on the farm, and there is a lot of catching up to do.  First, we have started our new barn for the pregnant sows.  By starting the barn, I mean we have started to dig a huge hole and now have a big pile of dirt.  This project will take up most of our resources for the rest of the summer, and most likely into the fall.  We hope to have all the pigs moved in by November.

(The big hole and dirt pile)

We are also preparing to get into the field for planting.  It rained last night, but the soil temperature is up where it needs to be (50+ degrees) and the weather looks promising, so as soon as we dry out we will start planting our corn.


On Thursday, our marketing guru, Greg, received a call from our buyer that we will have a third party audit at one of our Amish locations.  This is probably a good thing, but we are transitioning between our old record keeping system and our new one right now, so it is going to be a bit of a rush to make sure we have everything we need in the proper format in time for the audit.

(3 years worth of pig care records)

On the top of the crisis list this Monday, our fat tank sprung a leak.  Why do we have a fat tank?  It is part of our feed mill.  The fat we put in the tank is yellow grease.  That is basically the leftover fat from restaurants that is taken out and cleaned up a bit, then used for animal feed. I like to think it gives the feed a salty french fry flavor.We have been working to replace our current tank, knowing that it is on it's last legs, but the company we bought our old tank from is out of business.  We have a bid from another company, so we are in the process of getting the new tank built and installed, but that is still a few weeks away.

Unfortunately, the fat is kept warm in the tank so we can pump it, making it not very easy to contain once it spills.  We called the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD)  to report the spill and to figure out the best way to clean it up, but there won't be much to do until the fat hardens as it cools to air temperature.  To give perspective, this is the only time in 30 years that our fat tank has leaked.  Once the fat cools, it is pretty easy to clean up- similar to scraping ice off of your windshield, and we will dispose of it as MDARD recommends.  Fat isn't really a "hazardous" substance, like manure or pesticides, so it shouldn't be too bad of a clean up.

Things like this happen on the farm, even when we do our best to make sure everything is well maintained.  It is just like any other work place where problems occur from time to time.  We plan ahead for possible emergencies, so that we know what to do when something happens.  It's not fool proof, but it is the best that we can do.