Connecting the dots between your favorite rack of ribs and the economics of your favorite Iowa pork producer during Porktober. Not necessarily explaining all the various techniques involved in processing and shipping, but cooking is very important as you want your ribs to taste good, as do your overseas customers. Iowa Producer and past National Pork Board President Gene Noem recently traveled overseas to help in that effort.
“We demonstrated how we do it here and applied the rubs and that sort of thing. Randy did that demonstration while I kind of explained how we would typically do it in the US and then we broke out into groups at picnic tables where there were ribs already cooked and then we explained the process.”
So much of meat purchasing is history so adding US customs into the routines of overseas consumers is important. Now for the economics part, those purchases around the world have a real impact for your favorite Iowa Pork Producer.
“As our pig farmers, beef farmers and lamb growers think about their investment in both check-off and places and situations like the USMEF is creating for our product, just think about the return. When you process a pig and you get out to the meat level on the retail side, that product is worth somewhere north of 60 dollars more because of the export activity as opposed to if we didn’t have that export activity. That’s really important. Now, all of that $60 doesn’t come back to the farm gate obviously because there’s processing that has to go on, the packaging that happens, there’s shipping and all of that. Yet, that added value is there on the retail side and as you think about getting a return on the investment that you have with the check-off and offerings that you make, and the participation that USDA has, it’s a really important factor to remember.”
That portion does come back to the farm, reflected in the final purchase price of the animal.
