My daughter, Jessica, is just finishing her doctorate degree in Meat Science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She accompanied me to the American Society of Animal Science, the American Dairy Science Association, and the Canadian Society of Animal Science Joint Annual Meeting recently held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was a great meeting with a lot of scientific paper presentations and hundreds of posters detailing work in nutrition, genetics, reproduction, meat science, production, etc. along with several invited seminars on a multitude of subjects.
As we perused the posters, Jessica asked me how all this information gets out to producers who can use it, since they obviously were not in attendance at these technical meetings. Specifically, she was interested in how her soon-to-be father-in-law, a dairy farmer from Northeast Iowa, receives the benefits from all this knowledge being developed and reported at these meetings. In formulating my answer, I had to think about this for a minute. In the past, when farms were smaller and the Extension Service was more prevalent, the answer was easy. These state Extension specialists would interpret technical findings and put the information in layman terms in state Extension publications, which were available at all county offices. Winter extension meetings would highlight the information for producers in that county or area.
Now it is not so simple.
Sure, the Extension Service is still there, but managers of most mid- to large-sized operations are not using county Extension directors. In fact, in some states, that position has been eliminated. Most large operations have technical people on staff.
So, how many of these technical people show up at the animal science meetings? Not many. I suspect they are so busy helping producers just keep their businesses afloat that they are not able to take the time or money to go to meetings such as these. How ironic, since these economic times certainly call for new technologies and new efficiencies.
There are some consultants who work for producers, more so in the dairy industry than in the hog industry. These individuals attend the animal science meetings in force, because the sessions present them with the tools of their trade. Periodic livestock publications also help get information out to producers, but many have disappeared and the ones left are only a vestige of what they were. However, the survivors still do a pretty good job of conveying the latest information to producers.
The last part of my answer to Jessica is exactly what we are trying to do with the Pork Information Gateway at the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence. We bring together the remaining Extension folks who have a real knack for interpreting complicated science, and put them to work writing fact sheets, how-to documents, references, and other articles. These are available for use by pork producers directly or for use by influencers such as Extension specialists, consultants, veterinarians and writers. Making people aware of this valuable resource is a challenge, but it is one to which we are devoting more of our attention.
A lot of knowledge is being generated by scientific researchers every day. Our challenge is to interpret this information and get it out to the early adopters, with recommendations on how to implement the findings in their operations for optimum efficiencies and maximum profitability. By doing so, we can continue to offer consumers the safest and most wholesome food at reasonable prices, while getting our livestock industries back into the black.
Editor’s Note: Dr. Meisinger is the Executive Director of the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence. For more information, or to contact Dr. Meisinger, e-mail him at: drdave@iastate.edu or call by phone at (515) 975-3557.
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