I really wanted to understand what I did well in the industry, and more importantly, what could I improve on? So that was the beginning of my journey at Christensen Farms. After my first short initial time at Christensen Farms, I did a stint with Maple Leaf Foods where I learned the packing business. And I was responsible for chilled pork exports to Asia. I ended up working with a plant in Lethbridge, Alberta and Brandon, Manitoba, where I learned everything about the packing business. It was fantastic, but a little bit too much travel. I had four young kids and a wife at the time, and we stopped recognizing each other. That’s when I decided to get back into entrepreneurship, and I started a company with Steve Weiss and Chad Hagen known as NutriQuest. I learned a lot about research and development and innovation in the swine industry in those efforts. And I got a call from Bob back in 2010 to rejoin Christensen Farms and the rest is history. I ended up working in areas of risk management, financial planning and analysis, supply chain logistics, marketing of pigs, and other activities, and started to build my career within Christensen Farms over the last decade. And now here I am, the CEO. What do you see as some of the challenges and how at Christensen are you positioned to address them? You know, I tend to wake up every day and start thinking about the opportunities within the business and maybe they’re challenges or not, but I also want to pause, and just think about the wonderful opportunity that we have not only as a company, but as an industry. We’ve got excellent, excellent land resources, both crops, water, and access to water. We’ve got technology and innovation within the United States. We’ve got access to markets from a geographical perspective and we have everything needed in terms of the good recipe for producing high-quality pork and being able to export it to the globe. You know, through USDA, U.S. pork is known across the globe in
terms of its ultimate food safety based on critical processes; for example, inspection systems. We also are able to do this in an affordable way where we can reach many consumers. I wake up every morning grateful for the opportunities we have, and then I start thinking about the challenges. Many of the big challenges facing our industry won’t be unfamiliar to your audience here. Trade and access to trade continue to be key issues, driven largely by geopolitical factors. The cost of doing business post-pandemic has also accelerated, not just in terms of consumables but because farming itself is so capital-intensive. Today, remodeling a barn can cost nearly as much as what it cost to build it from scratch years ago. Another significant challenge is the growing gap between those on the farm and those off the farm — urbanization, in other words. That divide impacts communication and the trust people have in what we do as farmers to feed the world. So that voice in telling our story. And then I think another piece that’s fairly significant is immigration. And, you know, in the news and the media, you hear all this stuff about illegal immigration. Well, okay, I get that’s an issue in the United States, but a real issue is actually immigration reform for legal immigration. I’m an immigrant, my family’s immigrants. We went through the process. We understand what it takes to get here and do it properly. But I still think the farm, the farmers, whether it’s cash cropping or whether it’s livestock, there’s a gap in terms of having access to the workforce that want to come and actually enrich their lives through the experience of agriculture in the United States. Another item at the top of the list is foreign animal disease. You know, at Christensen Farms, we’ve spent a lot of time on that topic, we have our plan. It’s really part of our crisis management plan. It’s an offshoot, but it’s a robust plan.
WE HAVE AN IMMENSE RESPONSIBILITY IN SUSTAINABILITY, BUT WE HAVE — TO OURSELVES INTERNALLY AND AS AN INDUSTRY —
A BIGGER RESPONSIBILITY OF TELLING THE GREAT STORY (OF WHAT PORK PRODUCERS CONTRIBUTE) TO THE WORLD.
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