Published: August 27, 2008 10:44 am            

Chapters down but FFA student numbers up

Originally published in the August 22, 2008, print edition.

Minnesota FFA State Sentinel Peter Thome of Adams was one of the state FFA officers “on duty” at the University of Minnesota tent at Farmfest.

His family runs a farrow-to-finish swine operation hugging the Iowa border in Mower County. But Peter is marketing the Minnesota FFA Association these days and doing a good job.

“My older siblings did both FFA and 4-H. So as a farm kid, I could see the value of FFA and agricultural training in high school,” said Thome, now a third-year ag education/animal science student at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls.

Leadership development and organizational skills rank high in his evaluation of what FFA brings to his agenda. “For career development in agriculture, FFA is just an outstanding experience,” said Thome, who noted that 14 individuals competed for the various state FFA positions with six being elected at the state FFA spring convention. “It was a grueling two days of interviews for all of us but a great learning experience also.”

Thome said 2008 is an exciting year for the Minnesota FFA Association — “Experience the Legacy” is the theme — with this being the first year since 1990 that FFA membership is over 9,000 members (currently at 9,097 members). The Minnesota FFA Foundation earned about $1,700 at the live auction in the big Farm Forum tent at Farmfest.

River Falls was his choice because two older brothers also attended this university, and he wanted to be an Alpha Gamma Rho agricultural fraternity member. Ambitions are to be an ag education teacher for a few years and then either branch into ag business or become a member of the family swine operation.

Family hog business

Recently expanded to 6,000 sows, the family hog business certainly offers career options for young Thome. “We’re raising about 120,000 hogs per year. We have marketing contracts with Hormel. We have other hog producers that finish hogs for us besides my Dad and two brothers running the home base,” said Thome.

Because of high feed costs and higher total production costs, he indicated their swine operation has been in “a survival mode” the past several months. But with corn prices trending down and pork prices trending up, Thome thinks the worst is behind the swine industry.

Having served as a Minnesota Pork Ambassador, telling the “hog story” is automatic for young Thome.

He said the pork industry is producing safer, better and healthier carcasses than ever before and, thanks to significant genetic advances, pork quality is tremendously improved. PIC genetics is the breeding program at Thome Farms. “Tremendous productivity for us, great carcass value for Hormel, and most importantly the consumer is getting a wholesome, nutritious product,” said Thome.

Their hog finishing buildings have “auto sort,” a system that automatically sorts hogs based on weight. Selling 250- to 260-pound finishing weights puts their carcasses into the bonus “red box” category, Hormel’s system for processing pork at its prime.

        

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