06/13/07 Training Pork Leaders

Training Pork Leaders. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. One thing about getting older is that I think more about the youth coming up behind. Although I really don't like to admit this, my 20 year old son is a lot smarter about a lot of things than I am. His world growing up was bigger and faster and a whole lot more complicated. I still have him on the wisdom and experience part as my 86 year old mom has on me. But we as the middle aged group need to embrace the youth coming up. They are going to be responsible for carrying the torch on to the future. Agriculture is one crucial area that needs young people. Program like the Pork Leadership Academy help prepare and train new industry leaders. Mindi Williamson is one of this years 25 pork producers selected. WILLIAMSON: Pork Leadership Academy is about developing leaders in the pork industry and adding representation for the producers. Mindi was part of the first group of students to go through Pork Quality Assurance Plus training. WILLIAMSON: Pork Quality Assurance Plus program is basically food safety and animal well-being and it combines the two to make the producers accountable basically for the product that we're providing in the U.S. The PQA Plus" certification helps earn customers' trust and improve the image of the industry. WILLIAMSON: It's very important today because consumers are wanting to be more educated about their product and so as producers we can be able to say that we have Pork Quality Assurance Plus training and that gives the consumers some kind of assurance that we are providing a quality product. The producers attend five Pork Leadership Academy meetings during the year focusing on a different issue. WILLIAMSON: We're going to be traveling to Washington DC to see how the legislature works, traveling to Mexico City to see about the exports  learn more about that and why exports are so important to the U.S. & to Mexico. The Pork Leadership Academy was held during World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa during the first weekend in June. Each year a new group of student from across the U.S. are chosen for the Leadership Academy. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.