Pork Congress 2012 - Iowa Pork Producers Association

2011 IPPA Membership Survey
Survey says: Iowa pork producers embrace
PQA Plus
The pork industry’s Pork Quality
Assurance Plus was introduced
in 2007 and most of Iowa’s pork
producers are solidly supporting
the program.
The results of the 2011 Iowa
Pork Producers Association
Membership Survey, announced
at January’s IPPA Annual Meeting,
showed that 95 percent of the 438
people responding to the annual
questionnaire are certified in
PQA Plus. Iowa currently leads
the nation with more than 14,600
individual program certifications.
More Iowa pork producers have
completed the PQA Plus site
assessment than any other state
with more than 5,400 assessments
done to date, but the membership
survey shows that 32 percent of
the state’s hog farmers have yet
to complete that aspect of the
program. Of the 68 percent who
said they have had the assessment,
96 percent said it was a positive
experience.
Producers were asked in the
survey if they favored combining
PQA Plus and Transport Quality
Assurance into a single program
and 82 percent said they liked the
idea. A total of 55 percent of the
respondents are not TQA certified.
PQA Plus was launched as a
continuous improvement program
that outlines good production
practices in the areas of food
safety and animal well-being.
Individuals are first certified
through an education program.
Following certification, producers
invite PQA Plus advisors to
conduct an objective assessment
of practices on the farm.
“PQA Plus certification and the
site assessment process helps
show customers we care about our
animals and the safety of food we
produce and aids in continuous
improvement of our industry,”
IPPA Past President Leon Sheets
said in an association news release
last year.
Feed costs/availability
The 2010 survey revealed that
feed costs were the chief concern
among Iowa producers and
it remained the number one
headache in the 2011 survey.
Disease challenges finished a
close second, followed by market
prices/access, animal rights
activists and energy costs.
A big concern of IPPA leadership
in late 2010 and early 2011 was
whether pork producers would
have enough corn at their disposal
to feed livestock due to increased
competition for corn. Those
fears have not materialized to
date and 97 percent of the survey
respondents said they have had
no problems accessing feed grains
when asked the question. Sixtyseven
percent said they would
favor releasing non-sensitive CRP
acres for feed grain production.
Thirty-three percent said they
weren’t in favor of the idea.
As a possible indication of the
impact of higher feed costs, the
2011 survey found that more corn
grown by hog farmers was used for
their own feed needs. Around 72
percent of the corn grown by pork
producers was used for feed, up 12
percent from 2010.
On a related question, 72 percent
of the respondents reported using
dried distillers grains in their feed
rations. Those who use DDGS said
22 percent is used in both gestation
and finishing.
Marketing
One section of the survey asked
questions related to marketing.
Those responding to the survey
said they receive 1.56 bids before
selling market hogs and two
different processors purchase hogs
from them during an average year.
Most producers do not have a
marketing agreement with a
processor or third-party, according
to the survey. Fifty-seven percent
said they do not have a marketing
agreement Of the 43 percent who
said they do, there’s 1.73 years left
on the agreement and they rate it
fairly positively.
14 March 2012