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Courage will find you
By Darrell D. Anderson
A wealthy businessman invited several colleagues to tour his es-tate. “These are the things that success will get you,” he said as he walked the group past the stables and over to his collection of antique sports cars. “But this is what business is all about,” he said as he brought the group to the edge of a pool filled with alligators.
“Alligators are a lot like the challenges you’ll face in your career – they can crush you, they can drown you, and they can consume you,” he said. “But courage is about the only thing that will help you tackle the ‘alligators’ on your path to success.
“In fact, if anyone here has the courage to swim across the pool, I will give you whatever you want – money, land – you name it,” he continued.
The guests laughed at this outrageous proposal and began to walk away from the pool. Suddenly, a loud splash was heard. All eyes focused on one man as he swam through the water with the alligators snapping at his heels. After a few moments he reached the other side, climbed out, and gasped for air.
“You are truly a man of courage,” the billionaire exclaimed. “And I am a man of my word. You can have anything you want – just name it.”
“I only want one thing,” the young man panted. “I want to know who pushed me in that pool!”
Well, I would imagine there are a few of you wondering today who pushed you in the pool of challenges that are facing our industry. Market hog prices below break-even for 18 months have finally given way to small profits the past few weeks. But the valley was pretty long, and the wounds pretty deep.
The headlines are filled every day with issues that could impact your business a great deal. Issues such as country-of-origin labeling (COOL), moratoriums on building expansions, bans on gestation crates, BSE (mad cow) disease issues, FMD, PRRS, PETA, high grain prices, drought conditions – the list goes on and on. Will any of your customers survive, and ultimately, will you survive?
I know those are difficult questions for some of you to have to address, but I also know you do it everyday. The beauty of our business is that breeders of livestock have a resiliency unknown to most people in America today. We’ve been through tough times before. We know there have always been challenges. We simply need to utilize the resources we have to swim through these “new alligators.”
Let me use just one issue as an example. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the possibility of establishing a national animal identification system. The increased threat of foreign animal diseases and food safety concerns has even entered the arena of homeland security, and it has gotten the attention of U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.
With his involvement, I can almost assure you that an action plan will be developed in the near future. A task force working with the National Institute for Animal Agriculture has developed a work plan, and it was shared with me at a meeting in Denver recently.
Our corporate integrator friends have taken steps in this direction, as Seaboard Farms announced in February “a new online service that allows retail customers to trace individual boxes of Natural Prairie Fresh Premium Pork to a source farm.” Consumers will be able to find out what kind of farm their pork chop was raised on, the genetics of the pig and animal handling issues by simply accessing their Web site and inputting a serial number from the package of meat.
One of my favorite quotes is this: “Change is a challenge for the courageous, an opportunity for the alert, and a threat for the insecure.”
It would be easy for us to panic and be threatened by the concept of a national animal ID system. But who should be better equipped to implement such a system than breeders of pedigreed livestock? We already have every animal identified, we know their lineage, and we have tools with genetic-prediction capabilities.
This arena is yet another “pool of alligators” that we need to aggressively challenge. Ultimately, we can help lead the industry safely to the other side.
What is NSR doing to help you? I learned from President Ronald Reagan that if you’re not very talented, you’d better surround yourself with some excellent teammates that can get the job done.
I am very proud of the current “Team NSR.” Not only are they an extremely talented group of individuals, they are also some of the most dedicated and conscientious folks you could ever meet.
They truly possess a passion for the purebred swine industry and have your best interests at heart. We have tried to segment our services to provide assistance to each and every NSR member, regardless of size, goals and business structure.
Many “alligators” are in the pool. But working together, I am confident we will continue to fulfill our mission statement to “enhance the value, influence and image of purebred Durocs ,Hampshires , Landrace, and Yorkshires in all segments of the swine industry.” Why not “jump in the pool” and join us in our efforts?
