Producer meetings address challenges and opportunities

By Western Swine Health Associates:  Drs. Frank Marshall, Chris Misutka, Pete Pawluk, Shawn Davidson, Chris Byra, Gail Cunningham and Egan Brockhoff

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change”
– Charles Darwin

I (Dr. Egan Brockhoff) recently had the opportunity to attend a number of workshops focused on the best practices of leading farmers.  Having farmed myself for many years prior to entering my veterinary career it was interesting for me to be reminded that such a diverse range of practices are necessary for success in primary agricultural production today.  A colleague and friend of mine once told me that within every challenge lies an opportunity.  Recognizing the challenges that our industry faces, it was outlined at this workshop that advancement through continuing education will be a big part of the future successes of our best practices producers.  Beginning in February of this year the Western Swine Health Associates (WSHA) began their first eight-day advanced swine management and nutrition course for barn managers and owners.

The initial success of this particular course lends much to the foundational work that Dr. Melodie Chan has done in the western dairy industry.  By adapting that portfolio of work in adult learning to swine production and nutrition the WSHA and other industry resource persons have been able to work with 24 producers since Christmas so far in two four week courses.  

The finer details of the course itself fall outside the scope of this article; however, a number of bullet points are noteworthy.  The approach was directed at providing a balanced portfolio of skills for our producers: Productivity, Human Resources, Fiscal Management, and Customer Satisfaction.

Factors of successful production are often the tenets of many producer seminars.  This course works hard to underscore the differences between production and productivity and how that relates to sustainability and profitability.  The correlation between production and productivity is often murky and can typically only be realized through the specifics rational enterprise analysis.

We also wanted to introduce concepts of human resources (HR) and management into our course model.  Even at the level of the 200-sow unit, its productivity is increasingly impacted by HR and the management of those people resources.  Whether it is keeping a single staff member motivated and happy or an entire team the fundamentals of people management hold true.  In many ways, the day spent with the course participants on HR, generational differences and communication was about more than what goes on in the barn.  It was about how all relationships can be strengthened and how those can and will impact the future of your business and your life around it.  

Understanding the needs of your customers was also a topic we wanted to bring forward.  Not only did we spend time defining our various customers as producers of pork products we also spoke to how these various customers will and do perceive pork production.  An interesting question comes to mind.  Recently I attended a meeting in Kansas City.  The hot topics of the day were the handling of the downer dairy cows at a California slaughter facility and the long haul transport of pigs from Alberta.  The question we as veterinarians had to ask ourselves at this meeting and you as producers have to ask yourself every day is are we ready to allow cameras into our barns?  Do we do the best we can with pain management?  How do we handle downers?  What has been acceptable, what is acceptable, and what will be acceptable? These are all questions we asked and addressed during the course.

To bring a close to the course we included talks in financial analysis and benchmarking.  In itself this could have been a month long or even year-long subject to cover.  Nevertheless it is a timely discussion and went along way to showing the importance of putting yourself under a microscope from time to time.  Walking through benchmarking exercises brought to the forefront the significant variation in the productivity of various enterprises.  Many years ago I was introduced to the idea that you can’t manage what you do not measure.  Certainly that still holds true today.

The opportunity to bring these courses forward to producers has been a professionally rewarding experience for the WSHA, our producers, and I as the project coordinator.  As we all reflect upon our past accomplishments, meditate on those that we presently strive towards, we must not forget to look forward. There are many opportunities ahead along with the challenges.