By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa – In a joint letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Iowa and Minnesota’s top agriculture officials have called on the former Iowa governor to use $50 million of pork products from federal emergency funds to help struggling producers.

“Pork producers in Minnesota and around the country are in a financial crisis,” wrote Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson to Vilsack. “Directing federal funds already allocated to the USDA to purchase pork products would give our producers a much-needed boost at a time of great need.”

In the letter written four days before the release of the USDA’s latest Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report, Hugoson and Northey urged Vilsack to use the USDA’s Section 32 funds to purchase the pork products to be used in federal emergency food programs, food pantries, senior food programs and other non-commercial food channels.

According to the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), last month marked the pork industry’s 21st straight month of posted losses, with the average loss over that period of $22 to $23 per head, which was recently down to about $11 a head.

Currently, Iowa is the nation’s number one hog producer, with Minnesota ranking third in pork production.

The two agriculture secretaries said the move would help U.S. pork producers reduce the excess pork supply in the marketplace, while “providing a healthy protein source to the many Americans in need who are served by these food assistance programs.”

Northey and Hugoson also said weakened export demand, high input prices and market disruptions associated with the H1N1 influenza outbreak have combined to “create the most difficult operating environment for pork producers in many years.”

“Due to a rare combination of factors largely outside their control, producers in Iowa, Minnesota, and other states now face the most difficult operating environment in decades,” they wrote.

The American Farm Bureau Federation reported that U.S. pork producers’ per-head losses doubled after the H1N1outbreak.
In fact, the NPPC, which also has an office in Des Moines, Iowa, estimated that U.S. pork producers lost nearly $7.2 million each day between April 24 and May 1.

The NPPC, which also requested $50 million from Vilsack in May, said 2008 was among the worst financial years ever for pork producers, with losses accelerating in April 2009 as H1N1 influenza emerged.

“So we would certainly be supportive of those two states’ agriculture secretaries making that request too,” said David Warner, NPPC communications director. “It would certainly help (but) it won’t take care of all our problems right now.” 

Northey said the H1N1 dustup cost Iowa pork farmers an estimated $175 million from April 21 to May 13, while Minnesota producers have lost more than $45 million since May 1, according to the Minnesota Pork Producers Assoc. (MPPA).

Overall, Warner estimated that U.S. producers lost an estimated $8.8 million per day between April 27 and June 19 for a total of about $352 million during the height of the outbreak.
In the aftermath of H1N1, Hugoson and Northey told Vilsack that “unfounded fears” over food safety have contributed significantly to the problem, providing “an excuse for protectionist-minded countries to close their doors to U.S. meat and poultry products,” due mainly to the media’s misinformation and fear-mongering.

“In the early weeks of the H1N1 outbreak, the disease was mislabeled ‘swine flu,’ and while many have now switched to the more accurate label of H1N1, some media outlets still use the earlier, less accurate label,” they wrote.

The USDA said H1N1 has not been found in U.S. hogs, but that it hadn’t stopped several countries such as Communist China from placing bans and other restrictions on U.S. imports. In 2008, China was the number export market for U.S. pork. 

Warner added that the NPPC expected demand to increase during the summer, but said producers wouldn’t likely break even until next year.