By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

POLO, Ill. — The new president of the Illinois Pork Producers Assoc. (IPPA) said pork producers are due for a positive shift in 2010.
“Every time my banker sees me the first thing he asks is ‘how are the prices in the hog market,’” said Brent Scholl, a fifth-generation livestock and row-crop farmer from Polo (Ogle County), who was elected to the leadership position by IPPA delegates during the 2010 Illinois Pork Expo earlier this month in Peoria.

“After the last two-plus years that we have been losing money, it’s time for pork producers to make a profit.”

The long slide from profitability Scholl referred to saw pork producers bear witness to a tanking U.S. economy teamed with soaring input prices, public uncertainty of pork’s safety due to the H1N1 influenza scare and boycotts of U.S. pork products by foreign nations. Scholl tries to stay upbeat when speaking of the flogging the industry took during that period and remains optimistic about the future.

“The only silver lining in having a couple of years of bad prices is that you find ways to cut costs. In the hog industry, we’ve done everything we could to save costs,” said Scholl, who co-owns an insurance business serving northwest Illinois in addition to partnering on the family farm with his brother, Bruce. “There is encouragement that the export markets are coming back, including Russia and China, and we want to keep our good customers in Mexico and Japan. Cutting the sow herd will help us, too.”
With input costs for feed down significantly from 2008, Scholl feels that all the indicators are pointing to at least a break-even year for pork producers in 2010.

Brent’s wife, Kathy, the couple’s two children, grandfather and brother’s family all play active roles in the farming business. Bruce’s son, Matt, is currently a freshman at Illinois State University and plans to return to the farm to represent the sixth generation of Scholls to manage the family’s centennial farm. Because the farm has meant so much to Scholl and his family, he bristles at the current attack on animal agriculture from animal rights groups, the media and others.

“We’ve got to continue to work on image. I think image continues to be a big concern, especially now that people are trying to pick us off,” Scholl said. “We’ve got to get out and tell our story - that we are doing the right thing, that we do care for our animals and that we are environmentally (responsible).”

A recent report on pork and livestock producers’ use of antibiotics in their animals aired by the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and similar television and print media reports are misleading to the public and offensive to family farmers, Scholl feels.

“As a consumer, parent and farmer, I’m concerned about the safety of the food I serve to my family,” he said. “I thought the (CBS Evening News) report was very, very disappointing and not reported fairly. (Couric) did talk to the National Pork Producers Council and visit a hog farm, but a television crew might spend a half a day at that farm and then cut it down to a 30-second clip for the news. That doesn’t do justice to the farm.”

Conscientious pork producers are cognizant of the types and amounts of antibiotics they administer to their animals as well as the reasons they give them, said Scholl.

“We follow our veterinarian’s recommendations on what antibiotics to use. We follow FDA labels on how those antibiotics are supposed to be used. We also follow all of the withdrawal times, so that residue is out of the meat when that animal goes to market. I don’t believe that people are getting sick from (animal) antibiotics; there are other reasons. We eat the same pork that we send to market, so it is in our best interests to provide the animals with the best care and nutrition to create the safest product possible,” Scholl said.

Scholl takes over as president of the IPPA from Nokomis farmer Phil Borgic. Other Illinois pork producers elected to IPPA leadership roles were Mike Haag of Emington (president-elect), Derek Dunkirk of Morrisonville (vice-president/treasurer) and Todd Dail of Erie (secretary).