Those five words were just what I needed to hear the other day. Life has felt a little heavy lately, and sometimes it’s hard to even put my finger on why. One thing I’ve learned about being an ag journalist is that you do it because you are passionate about the people you write for and about. So, when the people you write for and about are struggling, you struggle, too.
When a pork producer sent me that simple text, I admit it got to me. Putting together the outlook stories for 2024 hasn’t been easy. There is no sugarcoating that 2023 was plain awful and 2024 doesn’t look a whole lot better.
Sometimes we have no choice but to sit in the hard for a while. Good things will come out of the wait for some, but others won’t be so lucky. That is a difficult thing to wrestle with. I’m still convinced by the theme I see woven throughout the stories on PorkBusiness.com, that we have good reason to play the long game and have hope.
Our industry is filled with innovative, tireless, hardworking people who are advocating up for the pork industry and trying to deliver certainty in uncertain times by opening up new avenues for trade and protecting producers’ freedom to operate, to name a few.
Researchers continue to open new doors in science, finding answers to some of the toughest questions in swine health and nutrition. Did you catch the exciting breakthrough in feed biosecurity last fall when Scott Dee, DVM, discovered porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus can survive and be transmitted through feed?
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