Published: November 26, 2008 11:06 am            

New Pork Board CEO faces big challenges

Originally published in the Nov. 14, 2008, print edition.

This hasn’t been the best of years for hog producers, but Chris Novak sees things looking up for that sector heading into 2009.

Novak, the new CEO for the National Pork Board, is charged with overseeing the checkoff organization for the pork industry, and in that mission he monitors how the producers’ checkoff dollars are spent.

“Farmers who are paying their checkoff dollars are investors,” he said. “They invest in these programs to help themselves be productive and profitable.”

Novak sees three main keys to the mission of the NPB.

“Our Profitability Challenge program has been targeted at helping producers manage their production costs,” Novak said. “That became a challenge this year with the volatility with the high feed costs and the low hog prices.” Providing such programs is all about helping producers; helping them work through challenging times such as the past year.

Crash course

Helping producers in their relationship with consumers is another key component of the NPB mission. Novak got a crash course in that in his first month on the job, with the release of the PETA hidden-camera video from an Iowa hog farm showing workers abuse the swine in their care.

“We have tremendous stories to tell how our producers are doing a good job of raising hogs. We need to communicate these stories to consumers,” he said. “The stories that these activist groups are telling are an anomaly. ... Our producers are the true and first animal welfarists.”

Novak said these groups intend to push people away from eating meat, as well as pushing livestock producers to change their practices. The recent general election may also push producers to change their practices.

Election impact

Californians voted 63.2 to 36.8 percent in favor of Proposition 2, which will require that pregnant pigs, laying hens and calves raised for veal be kept in enclosures large enough that they can turn around and fully extend their limbs. Producers will have until Jan. 1, 2015, to change their housing systems. Florida and Arizona voters passed similar measures in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

Though these three states don’t have large hog production numbers, these measures will still impact the nation’s pork industry. “We cannot use checkoff dollars for lobbying purposes, but we use checkoff dollars to research to find new types of production that producers can implement,” Novak said. “Whatever programs that we make available for our producers, we want them all to be science-based, not just based on emotion.”

Export markets

While animal rights groups are trying to push people away from a meat diet, the mission of the NPB is to get people to eat more pork, and not just here in the Unites States. The third key to improving the nation’s pork industry is to improve its export markets, and that appears to be working. “In the first eight months of 2008 we saw a 71 percent increase in pork exports” over the same period in 2007. The NPB is not alone in this effort as they partner with the National Pork Producers Council and the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

“We know we have to listen to the consumer, regardless where they are, whether that’s in Tokyo or New York City,” he said.

As other countries’ economies develop, U.S. exports are introducing the consumers there to the better cuts of pork, rather than the cheaper cuts that they have grown familiar with.

Homecoming

Joining the NPB is kind of a homecoming for Novak, as earlier in his career he spent five years with the National Pork Producers Council. This move also brings him back to his home state of Iowa, having grown up near Marion in east-central Iowa. The NPB and NPPC offices are both in Des Moines, Iowa.

Novak had most recently served as the executive director of the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana’s corn organizations.

        

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