Doug Hall shipped the last of his hogs on April 7. On April 12, the Alberta hog producer, shown above, was on the job at Aggie Days in Calgary, answering questions about pigs posed by thousands of Alberta children.
Hall, who farms east of Airdrie, Alta., is a regular at the event, which is designed to connect children with agriculture. He comes every year to help man the hog display. It’s the most popular among the many displays at Aggie Days because it features a live sow and piglets.
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Kids and parents like to touch and watch the piglets as they sleep, suckle and oink.
This year, Hall is answering questions about hard times in the hog industry – the same hard times that forced him out of the hog business before he lost even more money on his 177-sow, farrow to finish operation.
At Aggie Days, it’s the parents, of course, who pose the economic questions. They’re mostly concerned about future sources of their pork should Canadian product become harder to find.
Hall says he shares their concern. Whether Canadian consumers know it or not, they do influence the way domestic pork is produced, he says. There are certain standards to maintain in terms of quality and animal care.
Now, with so many hog producers forced out of business due to low prices and high production costs, consumers face the possibility of buying imported pork in their grocery stores. And there are no similar quality guarantees associated with imported product, Hall says.
But his tone softens when he’s approached by kids who want to know about piglets.
“Why are they sleeping so much?”
“Why are they squealing?”
“Why are they different colours?”
Every question is an opportunity for Hall to explain piglet needs, hog physiology and even breeding and genetics pertaining to this particular Yorkshire-Landrace sow bred to a Duroc boar.
Such education comes easily to this man who used to accept school tours on his farm.
Now, with the hogs gone, he plans to concentrate on farming his 1,400 acres that are probably worth more as subdivided acreage land than they are for food production. And there’s something wrong with that equation, we agree as we shout amid the din.
But Hall isn’t bitter.
“You know, Barb, if I had to do it all over again, I would,” he says, as he talks about rural values, the cycle of life and that all-important work ethic.
“My kids are the tightest managers of money that you could ever imagine. They are extremely good money managers.”
But even the best money management doesn’t allow people to make money in the hog business these days.
When that changes, we should hope Hall is still around to explain hog production to those who want to know.
