I think back to the stories from my folks growing up during the depression how they milked cows by hand, raised chickens, hogs, and beef cows. I think of those stories and look at today’s animal industry that is the best in the world and does a fantastic job providing the main source of protein in our diets. The genetics of beef and swine and how we have created leaner, tenderer and higher quality meats for the consumer are great.  Look at the dairy industry providing milk and dairy products for our people, school milk for all the children in our school systems and all the dairy related milk, cheese, and butter items. Pork has come a long way from having quite a bit of fat to a lean high quality healthy meat. The beef industry has also come a long way in leaner cuts, higher quality, and less fat. We have even done better than this by offering specialty meat items to restaurants and specialty groceries.

The livestock industry generates many jobs in a community and provides income to feed supplies, animal heath industries and many others sectors of the job spectrum. The main issue we need to understand is that the livestock industry provides for 300 to 400 million people and also a strong export market to the world. Without a doubt we have the cleanest, highest quality meat products in the world this is why many foreign countries buy from us. In the last 5 years, even when other sectors of the economy have been slow, the agriculture sector has done well and a large part of that is due to efficient livestock production from the producer to the supermarket. In the USA we only have 7% of our annual income toward food, in Japan it is 14%, many other countries 20% and higher thanks to an efficient livestock industry.

Many people are thinking, yes but I am paying a little more at the store these days! Much of this is due to higher input costs to feed livestock, such as corn and higher gas prices for transportation input costs, and smaller herds due to sell offs caused by drought  which creates short term shortages. This is true for all of the animal industries across the board. With 70 to 90 million acres of corn planted, this may help the feed side for input costs due to more corn and lower prices for feed. In the last 75 years we have come a long way on improving our livestock industry as a whole and owe much to our livestock industry for creating a strong agricultural economic base for our people and the world as a whole.