Posted on 11/26/2019
One evening last summer, a dozen seasoned hog industry leaders gathered around a table in Algona, Iowa, to reminisce about the history of the modern pork business. Wendell Murphy, 80, was visiting from North Carolina, and he wanted to meet again with folks he did business with 30 years ago when he was getting his Midwest contract hog feeding company started.
In the late 1980s, Iowa farmers, those who made it through the farm crisis of that decade, were looking for ways to improve their financial position. They needed to diversify and find extra income outside of corn and soybean production. Pork producers were still mainly independent family farmers, but they were becoming aware that the industry in North Carolina was expand...