Dr. Glenn Grimes with the University of Missouri has been the definitive voice for the livestock industry as far as economics goes for five decades. He is here at World Pork Expo giving his views on the current state of the industry and what producers can expect and do to survive the next 18 months or so.
“The objective should be to minimize losses rather than maximize profits in the next 12-18 months,” he says. To do that, he recommends the futures markets. “For the first time in my experience, the futures market has offered a much better opportunity to minimize losses than ever before.”
He also says that it will be important for producers to maximize feed efficiency and he addressed the weather concerns that are the big topic of discussion here as fields are covered in standing water from a series of storms. “This weather is too similar to 1993 to make me feel comfortable as to what it may do to the corn crop this year. That’s the last real small corn crop that we had,” said Grimes. Ten billion bushels or less he says could stop or slow down the production of ethanol, however he emphasizes, “We will not run out of corn.”
Listen to the Grimes interview here: wpx08-grimes.mp3
Or download here:
Glenn Grimes Interview (9 min MP3)
AgWired coverage of World Pork Expo is sponsored by:
Some of our farm media friends have requested that we supply downloadable audio from World Pork Expo – so here are some files for your use. I just forget to do that now because it is so great to have the player that plays the audio immediately off the server.
This is the banner hanging on the side of the Novus International hospitality tent and inside we have a nice little set up to do interviews and posting and just meet and greet. It’s really pretty cool – I feel very special! 
I did get to do another interview with one of the Novus Pork Team, Dr. Felipe Navarro, who is swine market manager. He talked about the importance of their research in providing information for producers about their product performance. 
This good-looking bunch represents the 
According to Dan Meagher, Novus was founded in 1991 when Monsanto sold off its methionine business. That amino acid was the basis of their products Alimet and MHA for poultry. Now the company has expanded significantly and they are telling producers all about it here at WPX.
The line at singer/songwriter 
Visitors who visit the 
Lots of kids and hogs are here at World Pork Expo.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner visited the 20th annual World Pork Expo on Thursday and spoke with producers about some of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry.
On the opportunity side is exports. “Thanks to this industry for your role in leading US exports to another remarkable level,” Conner said. The latest forecast calls for agricultural exports to hit $108.5 billion – $26 billion more than last year. “And pork is certainly doing a big portion of this. We expect the value of pork exports to be up 35 percent from 2007.”