By RICK A. RICHARDS
Indiana Correspondent MERRILLVILLE, Ind. — Tim Belstra sees himself as a sort of bridge repairman trying to fix the connection between Indiana’s rural farmers and their urban neighbors.
At least once a month and many times, twice a month, Belstra, president of Belstra Milling Co., Inc. in DeMotte, visits towns and cities throughout northwestern Indiana preaching the gospel of proper agricultural animal husbandry. His latest stop was last Thursday in Merrillville, where he spoke to about two dozen members of the Civitan Club, a group of men and women who support community causes through a variety of fundraising efforts.
“Frankly, we need to do a better job of telling our story,” said Belstra. “When the Humane Society (HSUS) and other animal rights groups began talking about animal welfare, we batted that criticism away like it didn’t matter. That was the biggest mistake we could have made.”
In the absence of the livestock industry providing its message, the animal rights groups spread theirs without being challenged, and now people like him are having to react and try to close what he says is an information gap about agriculture.
“We were so busy doing the things that we do to produce the things that we do, we didn’t feel like we had time to talk about it,” said Belstra.
As a result, when major events such as the World Pork Expo roll around, not only are there seminars on the latest feeding techniques and research, there also are sessions on how best to spread the industry’s message. Even many schoolchildren don’t grasp the connection they have with rural neighbors. Asked where their food comes from, they invariably answer, “The grocery store.”
That’s not the answer Belstra wants to hear. He thinks youngsters – as well as their parents – need to know the role their farm cousins play in the nation’s food supply.
Belstra’s company started as a feed supply business for farmers, but in recent years has branched out to include five hog farms with 11,000 sows in Indiana and Illinois. He not only supplies feed to each operation, his company also is deeply involved in feed research to find the precise ingredients to produce the best market pig.
“The pork industry is very different today than it was 30 years ago,” said Belstra.
On a screen behind him was a photo of an open-air hog farm from the 1970s. Today, that same farm would keep its pigs confined inside barns where the air, temperature and feed are tightly controlled. While some criticize confined feeding operations as inhumane, he disagrees. Confined operations, he said, keep hogs warm in the winter, cool in the summer and helps keep them isolated from germs.
Belstra pointed out it was the 1970s when Americans first became aware of the fat content in their diet. “From 1979 to 1985, pork consumption fell 4 percent per year,” said Belstra. That decline was because pork was perceived as too fatty.
“And do you know what filled the gap,” he asked? “Chicken.”
Out of that realization, pork producers banded together to begin promoting a healthier product. That’s when the catchphrase “Pork – The Other White Meat” took off. According to statistics from the National Pork Board, pork sold in the supermarket today is 75 percent leaner than it was in the 1950s.
At the same time, the nation’s pork industry plays a major role in agriculture in general, consuming 10 percent of U.S. corn annually (about 1.4 billion bushels) and 10 percent of soybeans (283 million bushels).
Besides meat for consumption, he said the pork industry provides heart valves for humans, skin to help treat burn victims, byproducts that contribute some to 20 lifesaving drugs and pharmaceuticals and products for the cosmetics industry.
Though historically there has been concern about the quality of meat being sold at market, Belstra said the most serious threat to hog farmers – and anyone else who raises livestock on the farm – is the effort by animal rights group over the methods used to raise and care for the animals.
“I have a moral and ethical responsibility to my animals,” said Belstra. “It sounds cliché, but a healthy hog (is) a happy hog … Farmers are the original recyclers.”
From the crops grown in the field that are fed to the animals from using the waste from those animals to fertilize the fields, he said farmers try to make as much use as they can of their animals.
Besides, added Belstra, the hogs on his farm are his bottom line and doing anything to diminish their quality of life hurts that. It is counterproductive, he said, to mistreat his animals. He admitted there have been producers who have cut corners (such as the recent salmonella outbreak at Iowa egg farms), but those are the exception, not the rule.
Belstra said he enjoys speaking before such groups as the Civitan Club because people who live in urban areas are curious about farming. It may be two or three generations back since they had a connection with anyone on a farm, but he tries to find that connection and then build on it during his presentation.
“There is a growing disconnect between the farm and urban areas, and I want to bridge that gap,” said Belstra.
Over the past 20 years, about 40 percent of all livestock sales have been pork, while chicken makes up 29 percent, beef 24 percent and other animals 7 percent. Much of that, however, is for markets overseas; major destinations are Brazil, India, Russia and China, and to a lesser extent, Japan and Mexico.
In 1986, said Belstra, exports accounted for $2 billion in livestock sales. In 2009, that had risen to $38 billion. “The fact is, we’re part of the food chain,” he said. “We have to look at issues like animal welfare and how we treat our animals, and at our impact on the environment, especially things like odor control.”
It is all part of being a good neighbor, added Belstra. |
