Pork industry explores future with Prop 12 and trade opportunities

Scott Hays: Since I've been on the board, we've been working on Prop 12. And in the low point, my time on the board was getting that call that, that we were unsuccessful, not just to push back on the activists, but, you know, we've known all along, it's, that's not good for the, for the producers, it's not good for the consumers, and it's not good for the pigs. And so everything that that I'm trying to accomplish in my time, you know, protecting producers, right, you know, to have freedom to operate choice, which gives consumers choice as well, obviously, you know, I've spent my life trying to make life better for the pig, you know, on our farm, we saved the pig does well, we'll do well, and that that goes back several generations. So all three of those things, went, you know, went the wrong way, with the decision on prop 12.

Paul Yeager: Do you when you look at the ruling from the Supreme Court? Do you take any, I don't know, relief, that what they ruled on wasn't necessarily about agriculture, but it was more maybe a states rights issue.

Scott Hays: Yeah, and I'm certainly not a lawyer. But yeah, you know, when they, what they really said is, this is a problem, but it's not our problem. And so, you know, there's a little bit of, yeah, makes me feel a little better, that they agree that this is a problem, and it won't work. Now, we've got to figure out how, how we fix this long term. Because, you know, we can't, we can't let the activists continue to raise the price of food. Ultimately, they don't want us to do what we do, and they're gonna keep coming at us. And which is morally wrong. You know, we produce a high quality and low cost product, you know, we can produce cheaper than anybody in the world, because we're blessed with what I call the best garden in the world, you know, and if you raised on the farm, you understand what that means, you know, who had the good gardens and who didn't, you know, when you were a kid, but we are blessed with the best garden in the world, we should have the lowest cost and the highest quality food in the world. And for these folks to come out and just arbitrarily try to raise the cost on that, or try to put barriers up, you know, so that poor people don't have access to that it's just wrong.

Paul Yeager: One of the messages that has happened here before has always been about exports and finding new places to sell your product. China's always out there as they're a really good consumer, and really good buyer. But they're inconsistent.

Scott Hays: Yeah, it's China's a bit of a challenge, because they're in and out of the market. Fortunately, right now, they're in the market, pretty big. The thing that that I like to remind people about exports, exports is about product mix, you know, we consume all the bacon and all the ribs that are produced in this country right here, all the other most of the other products, there's extra. And so if we can sell that to somebody that enjoys it more than we do, that keeps the price of ribs and bacon lower, you know, for the American consumer, China enjoys parts of the pig that we typically don't in this country, and that's why they're good, good buyer. You know, we appreciate when they are in the market.

Paul Yeager: Different administrations have different views. I seem to remember the old trade rep for NPPC used to say pork was the tip of the spear in that fight. But six years ago, five years ago, where are you at right now politically, in a global stage, to be able to have conversations to get us pork in foreign markets?

Scott Hays: You know, it's, it's been a challenge. You know, the days of free trade agreements are, I hope they're not behind us, but they're certainly more challenging. We spend more time doing maintenance, what I call maintenance on our trade agreements than we do writing new agreements. But we've been fortunate with with Katherine Tai, she's done a nice job of keeping pork front and center when she travels around the world, has been very happy working with her. And we do have some opportunities. And we have, we have gained some market share, but I don't think I don't know that we'll write any true free trade agreements. We'd like to we'd like to do that. We'd like to get back into CTPP. We would like to work with the UK and get products in there now. They've moved away from the European Union. But those are long term negotiations.

Paul Yeager: It is a complicated world in agriculture and it is a global world. When you think of when you're Scott Hayes, Monroe County or Miro City, Missouri farmer, do you do get a sense of how big the world is in agriculture, knowing that your product could go anywhere?

Scott Hays: Yeah, it's it's, it's really eye opening. And it's, it's, it's humbling as well. There's many times in this position, I think, what is a what is a farm boy from Monroe City, Missouri, you know, how did I get at this table? Or how am I sitting in front of these folks, but I want to, you know, I want to represent the 66,000 Pork Producers. Well, all of them. It's, it's not about me, it's about them.

Paul Yeager: You still sound pretty optimistic.

Scott Hays: Yeah, in this business, you have to be an optimist. Maybe sometimes we're maybe we're a little too optimistic, but you just got to gotta get up every morning and go do the job. The lifecycle the pig is long enough that it's hard to make changes. You know, every time the market moves, you just gotta get up and do your best every day and, and hope it works out.

Paul Yeager: The full interview with Scott Hayes will be released Tuesday via the MToM podcast.