Recently I had a friend ask me why I was so upset about the misnaming of H1N1 as the “swine flu”. Well recently the reason has become painfully clear. In the past couple of months and really the past couple of weeks three family farms in my county have decided to quit raising hogs and they are just the three I have heard about. All three are good, hard-working family farms, two of the three have been on the same farm for five or more generations and currently have three generations employed on the farm. This is a trend I fear is only going to increase.
Earlier today I posted an article published in the Kansas Farmer and written by Rhonda McCurry about one of the farms and this weekend I had the chance to talk to my neighbor who owns the other farm. My neighbor told me that the economics of hog farming had made it necessary to liquidate their pigs. I am sure it was more than just the H1N1 scare that caused this, but I am just as sure it was the last nail in the coffin. The term “swine flu” unnecessarily scared consumers and caused pork consumption to fall and along with it the pay my friends receive for their hard work.
The National Pork Board, the American Farm Bureau and individual producers put together a great educational campaign aimed at alleviating those unfounded fears. However, many media outlets continued to use incorrect information and caused damage to family farmers like my friends (I do want to make sure FOX is complimented on their coverage, their stories refer to the virus as H1N1).
I work and live with these families and I can tell you they are good, hard-working family farmers who pay taxes, live modestly and are active in their communities. Did they ask for help like the auto industry. No. Did they pay themselves big bonuses and live above their means. No. Was any of this their fault. No. That is what makes this so painful.
Why should the loss of three farms be so alarming? Agriculture is the backbone of the U.S. economy. Less than 2% of our population is involved in the production of our food and fiber and that means even the smallest loss can lead to the erosion of our sustain ability. We do great things because we do not have shortages of food. In the words of my friend Ben Boyd, “If you like being dependant on foreign oil, you’re going to love being dependant on foreign food”.
We all need to include pork on our menus to help our hog farmers through this tough stretch. But the bigger issue is that we need to support our agricultural community and be sensitive to attacks, intentional and unintentional, that cause damage to the system that provides our food and fiber.