Today’s episode will cover key aspects for successful pig production.

 “[To be successful, we need to know] what are we going to do, how are we going to get there, and that needs to be an ongoing activity… and often times, in the pig industry we are really busy taking care of pigs but we really sometimes are not very good at business planning and development.” – Dr. Steve Pollmann.

 Our guest is Dr. Steve Pollmann, one of the bright minds of the Global Swine Industry. Dr. Pollman has worked in academia doing research, teaching and extension. Additionally, he worked in the feed industry on product development, technical services, quality control programs, diet formulation, and customer support in all livestock species. After that, he became the Director of Operations for Murphy-Brown and a few years later the President of the Western Operations, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods. Retired in 2014 and since he wanted to maintain some involvement in the industry, he started DSP Consulting working with several clients with product development needs, pork production support, and team building.

What you will learn:

- The key factors for successful pig production;

- The use of benchmark to get better;

- Metrics that we should we look for on a consistent basis;

- Managing for profit vs. managing for cost;

- Thoughts on managing the system for fixed weight vs. fixed time;

- Current thoughts on sow lifetime productivity;

- What sets apart successful professionals from those who are not.

Steve’s favorite swine-related resource: National Hog Farmer (site)

Steve’s favorite book unrelated to swine: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Edited by Lauro Faccin