Bioeconomic Iberico Pig Production

There is an old Texas temptation to look at a pasture, see a fat pig walking through it, and declare the whole thing a success. That is a fine way to admire a pig, but it is not necessarily a fine way to run a farm, because a production change can make the pasture look better, the pigs look better, and the farmer feel better while quietly taking money out of his pocket.The opposite can happen too. Sometimes the improvement costs more money at the beginning, takes more work than we would prefer, and does not show its worth until a few seasons have passed. That is farming for you. The land has never been particularly interested in our desire for an immediate return, and livestock have never learned to read a quarterly report.Bioeconomic thinking is simply the discipline of keeping the pig and the pencil in the same conversation. We need to know what the animal is doing, what the land is doing, what the market is doing, and what all of that is costing us, because a farm is a living thing that still has to pay its feed bill. A producer ought not stop with the question, “Did the animal improve?” We also need to ask, “What did that improvement cost, what did it change, and did the farm get enough back to make the trouble worthwhile?”  That may sound like business talk, but it is really husbandry. If we do not understand the cost of caring for an animal, we are only halfway finished caring for it.

Begin With the End in Mind

There are a whole lot of numbers a farmer can keep, and most of them will tell you something useful if you ask them the right question. Cost per pig tells one story, cost per pound of gain tells another, return per sow-year tells another, and return per hour of labor tells the story that usually makes everybody suddenly interested in sitting down. The trick is knowing which story you are trying to tell before you start counting.

If we are comparing two production systems, we first have to decide what we want to improve. Faster growth may be the goal, or lower feed cost, or better carcass quality, or more breeding stock, or fewer days between birth and sale. There is no shortage of things to improve on a farm, which is one reason farmers rarely run out of work.

This matters particularly with livestock. A farm raising Iberico pigs for breeding is not making precisely the same product as a farm raising pigs strictly for finished pork, even though both may have pigs rooting around in the same kind of dirt.

A breeding animal may have value far beyond the pounds it puts on. At the same time, not every pig born into a breeding program is going to become a breeder, and the cost of raising the ones that do not make the cut still belongs in the farm's accounting.

Follow the Biological Chain

A pig does not begin at the feed trough, and a farm does not begin with a spreadsheet. Start with the breeding females and follow the pigs all the way through—matings, litters, pigs born, pigs surviving, growth, selection, finishing, and finally sale. Then lay the records we actually have alongside that journey.

That little exercise has a way of separating what we know from what we merely think we know. A growth model can help us understand feed, nutrients, and weight gain, but a fancy model cannot make missing farm records magically appear. As we say in East Texas, putting a new hat on a mule doesn't make him a racehorse.  Good decisions begin with good measurements.

Compare Change Against a Real Baseline

Before changing the ration, genetics, pasture system, or finishing period, we need to know where we are standing. Describe the present system first. What does it cost in feed, labor, facilities, time, processing, and losses? What does it produce, and what does it sell for?

Then put the proposed change beside it. What does it add? What does it take away? How many more days until market or processing? How much more feed and labor? Does it require different processing? And most importantly, does somebody actually intend to pay us more for the finished pig?

There is a considerable difference between a premium we hope somebody will pay and a premium somebody is already paying.  Hope belongs on the farm—we couldn't plant a seed or breed a sow without it.  But hope by itself makes a poor business plan. If an idea works only when every pig gains perfectly, feed stays cheap, nobody gets sick, and every customer pays top dollar, we probably ought to know that before hitching the trailer.

A Simple Example

Suppose another finishing period costs us $60 per pig and we believe it will add $80 to the sale price. On paper, we've gained $20 before counting additional labor, financing, mortality, or risk. But suppose the market gives us only another $40. Now we've lost $20 before counting those other expenses.

The particular numbers aren't the point. The lesson is. The pig has to respond, and the customer has to respond. A heavier, better-finished hog doesn't necessarily make us money unless somebody values what we've produced enough to pay for it. The pasture and the woods get a vote. The pig gets a vote. And sooner or later, the customer gets a vote too.

Test the Assumptions That Can Move the Answer

Feed price, sale price, survival rate, days to market, and the number of pigs selected for breeding can change the economics in a hurry. Instead of pretending we know exactly what those numbers will be, we ought to test a reasonable range and use our own farm records whenever we have them.  That isn't about turning farming into a spreadsheet. Lord knows I've never seen an Excel sheet farrow a litter, mend a fence, or chase a pig back through a gate. It is about making the spreadsheet honest enough to resemble the farm.

Where Science Meets the Farm

Our work at Stillwater with Iberico and heritage genetics naturally raises questions about growth, efficiency, fertility, survival, meat quality, and profitability. Those are good questions. But the best answers begin by deciding exactly what we're trying to improve, keeping the biology of the animal in plain sight, and testing whether an apparent improvement survives more than one realistic set of assumptions.

Science can help us see what is happening. Records can tell us what happened on our farm. Experience can teach us what those numbers mean. And the land itself will eventually tell us whether we were paying attention. That's where I want Stillwater to live—in that good country where science meets husbandry, where numbers meet observation, and where we remember that we're tending living creatures on living soil, not manufacturing widgets.  A good livestock decision ought to work in the pasture and on paper.  And if it only works on paper, don't show it to the pigs. They have a way of finding the flaw in the plan.

Sources & Further Reading

• Brossard, L., et al. (2019). Modelling Nutritional Requirements of Growing Pigs from Local Breeds Using InraPorc. Animals 9(4), 169.

• Pork Information Gateway. Swine Nutrition Guide.