National Pork Board turns producer priorities into action

Joining our Anne Hess to talk about the efforts of the National Pork Board are Jamie Burr, National Pork Board Chief Sustainability Officer, and Chad Herring, a board member and advisory committee chair.

So Jamie, let's kick off this conversation by having you tell us about the advisory committee structure and how it's different from committees and task force of the past.

Sure.

So let's let's start with the structure piece of it.

And that's the from my perspective, really important part is because of the 24 members of this committee, 16 are producers, five are allied industry members.

And then we have three state association members on this as well.

And if we look at it from a producer perspective, they represent a very good cross section of not only geography, but production type as well.

So we were very intentional at trying to get representation from across the country and different production types as well.

And then as it relates to how it was done, how we will work forward differently than other committees of the past is this committee is advisory only.

Whereas in the past, when we had a committee structure, each committee, if you will, was provided with a budget and the committee members decided how that budget was spent.

uh it will not be done that way this will be pure advice on um we care to the board and the thing that i like about one of the other changes is with chad being on here he is a board member so that information can then be flow be be translated from board to board member so chad can carry what is the work that's going on what's the advice and it comes from a board member not from a member well chad is a member of the committee but it comes from a board member so i think those are the The two most important parts is it's advice only.

We've got board members that are chairs of the committee.

Yeah, I mean, it really sounds like producer ideas are taking root here and growing into industry action.

Is that fair to say?

Oh, it's it's fair to say.

And it's vitally important.

I mean, if we really think about this, the whole process, we're talking about producer dollar.

The other thing that's important to really focus on within this committee is freedom to operate.

We have a great story to share as it relates to how pork production has improved over time.

And we're going to be able to use the advice to take the next steps into the future of how do we begin looking forward and looking into the horizon within the wheat care space to continue to strive to keep farmers on the farm.