822-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 18, 2000
ANDY ANDREWS
iMncaster Farming Staff
GRANTVILLE (Dauphin
Co.) Traditional USDA grad
ing and pricing systems may
have to fall by the wayside in
light of a value- and brand
applied, consumer-driven mar
ketplace already taking shape,
according to a leading econo
mist and swine industry consult
ant.
Dennis DiPietre, director of
the meats and livestock group,
E-Markets, said the failure of
trade market structures are the
result of “hiding the ball” when
it comes to providing informa
tion about the process of food
from farm to table. That market
protectionism is one way in
which traditional markets have
collapsed in the latter years of
the ’9os.
DiPietre spoke to about 180
producers, educators, lawmak
ers, industry analysts, and re
lated agri-industry
representatives last week during
the second annual Pennsylvania
Agriculture In the 21st Century
Conference at the Grantville
Holiday Inn.
Breeding Complete
Cow Is Select Sires 9
Philosophy
PLAIN CITY, Ohio-“ Breeding the com
plete cow has always been the philosophy of
Select Sires,” said Ron Long, vice president of
sire procurement. “Complete cows are what
dairy producers really want and need. But the
complete cow may mean different things to
different producers-high milk production,
good feet and legs, high components, sound
udders. They’re all important but in varying
degrees to each individual producer.
“Select’s diversified lineup can be used
with the utmost confidence to breed the com
plete cow, no matter what her definition,”
said Long. “We offer reliable, breed leading
genetics that can meet the criteria of any pro
ducer’s breeding program. No other AI or
ganization can offer Holstein breeders as
many bulls over +3.00 for type. Nor does any
other stud offer more elite bulls at +3,000 for
milk. Plus, our nine new Holsteins increase
the variety of our balanced lineup.”
As Long stated, Select Sires is home to four
bulls at or above +3.00 for type. 7H05157
Durham leads this elite pack at +3.55. He is
followed by 7H08419 Approval at +3.41 and
7H05767 Bonanza at +3.05. Anchoring this
type team is 7H06250 Emerson at +3.00.
Emerson is also a breed leading TPI sire,
ranking among Holstein’s Top 10 TPI sires at
+ 1736, a 49 point increase from the Novem
ber summary.
7H05253 Caleb and 7H04637 Winchester
have “got milk”! Both are over +3,000 milk
and rank among the breed’s very best for this
trait. Their impressive TPIs of +1553 and
+ 1614, respectively, rank them among Hol
stein’s Top 50 TPI sires.
7H04351 Barlo added 263 daughters in
this summary. At 96% Rel, he’s now +2,850M
(up 163 pounds), +79P, and +I44BTPI.
7H03707 Mathie continues to be a favorite
for Select’s customers worldwide. This supe
rior settler added more than 1,600 new
daughters this summary and his milk and
type proofs climbed even higher. This was
also the case with his two sons, 7H05386 Chil
and 7H05300 Magnum. Both added daugh
ters and are seeing substantial increases
across the board. Chil and Magnum are both
over +2,000M, +1493TP1 and Superior Set
tlers. Furthermore, Chil is Select’s best for
Productive Life (+3.3), a measure of the
length of time the average daughter of a bull
Changing Marketing Landscape, Biote
In the recent past, processors
and marketers have been focus
ing on individual costs rather
than adding value. But gradu
ally a shift is taking place from
cutting production costs and
watching overproduction to, in
stead, closing in on ways to more
successfully create and manage
product demand in a competi
tive marketplace.
During the pork industry
crisis of 1998-1999, the large
producers with fixed assets in
expensive buildings, mecha
nisms, and feed struggled to
make ends meet. Yet the smaller
operators who kept the invest
ment in animals as assets could
almost weather the bottoming of
prices.
In an ideal, working market
place, there exists many buyers
and sellers with equal and high
quality information and homo
geneous products with easy
entry and exit for processors. All
four are “rapidly failing” in
today’s market realities. In
stead, industries are becoming
rapidly vertically integrated
with more vertical contracting.
According to DiPietre, price
discovery and thin markets
create an atmosphere where for
mula pricing and discounts rule.
As vertical integration increases
and markets fall into the hands
of fewer processors, innovation
lags. Expenses are passed to the
consumers, and joint products
those that have to somehow
be marketed from the main
product are overproduced.
Increasingly, however, con
sumers will pay tremendous
amounts of money for attributes
from items marketed. They are
impressed with the perceived
value of the product, noted Di-
Pietre. Even more, creating a
specific brand name will dictate
that more producers and proces
sors work even closer together to
produce a product at less cost,
with an in-line genetic .and feed
system to get those attributes to
have brand quality.
Along with those innovations
used to create brand quality.
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many producers are making use
of biotechnology, according to
DiPietre. Yet the public’s per
ception of biotechnology in the
food supply is questionable. Ac
cording to a survey conducted
by the Wirthlin Group in 1997
and 1999, about half of the
public have “very little knowl
edge” about it, DiPietre noted.
Over time, people are increas
ingly willing to consume biotech
foods if the benefit occurred to
them. If there was a benefit to
the environment, those totally
likely to adopt the food stands at
77 percent. The consensus that if
the technology will provide ben
efits to the consumer in five
years would biotech be ac
cepted is yes.
As an “observer from a cer
tain distance,” said Dan Ferber,
free-lance journalist from
Urbana, 111., who spoke at the
conference, the public’s accept
ance of biotechnology in agricul
ture will determine how much
can be learned from it.
Ferber said, “It is an under
statement to say the issue is con-
*
%
troversial. In this debate, no one
has a monopoly on the truth.”
Berber displayed headlines
from British tabloid newspapers
at the conference. He said there
are “real consequences” to the
use of biotechnology in food
crops. “They are serious over
there,” said Ferber. “People are
really frightened.”
Some headlines proclaim
biotech to be “Frankenstein”
foods. One story talks about the
“mad forces” of genetic crops.
The U.S., has reacted largely
with ignorance and fear. “It’s a
failure to communicate,” Ferber
said.
Ferber noted that an idea
adopted in Europe could be used
here: the “precautionary princi
ple,” he said. A product should
be proven safe, he said, and
thought of as “guilty until
proven innocent.”
Ferber pointed to a story from
August 1998 about a British sci
entist who noted, in some unreli
able research, that a potato
variety could stunt rats’ growth
and cause other problems. “Brit-
ain went
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