2023 World Pork Expo promotional image featuring a young pig in an indoor barn.

World Pork Expo 2023: Hogs in flux

Follow this page today and tomorrow for posts from the WPX, where I’ll try to bring you what’s happening, what’s news, what’s new and exciting, and what’s going on with BBQ pork, of which there is an abundance smoking away around the Iowa State Fairgrounds. PROP 12 COMPLIANT STEEL AND SYSTEMS BIG IN TRADE SHOW […] Read more

A group of pigs in an indoor pen.

Hog researchers use gene editing to pass on desired traits

Technique known as ‘surrogate sires,’ where male animals produce sperm carrying only genetic traits of donor animals

Researchers at Washington State University have created a gene-edited pig. The scientists used CRISPR, a gene-editing tool, to sterilize a group of five male pigs. Then, the pigs received stem cells from another male pig. That allowed them to “create sperm with that (other) male’s desired traits, to be passed on to the next generation,” […] Read more


A hog barn is under construction, tin roofing is just starting to be installed on the wooden structure.

High costs slow hog barn construction

Aaron Juergens of the Iowa Pork Producers Association said construction ground to a halt in 2020 with the pandemic. It’s hard to get a sense of expected costs when there are so few barns being built. 


A group of pigs in an indoor pen.

Gene-edited pigs made into sausages

The five pigs were slaughtered and processed at the WSU Meat Lab, then United States Department of Agriculture staff inspected the meat for safety. A meat scientist at the university made some of the pork into sausages, which will be sold to raise funds for students on the university's meat-judging team.