Pork Expo May Not Be All Swine and Dandy : Agriculture: Growers, who have been prosperous of late, will find their annual hog spectacular in Iowa picketed by animal rights activists.

L.A. Times Archives

May 27, 1991 12 AM PT

From Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — Vegetarians and animal-rights activists will try to grab the spotlight at the World Pork Expo this week as the industry cheers five years of living high on the hog.

The rising voice of the “meat stinks” crowd is a growing cloud over an industry that has been on the mend and attempting to change the image of pork from an artery-clogging food to a lean and nutritious rival of chicken.

The good times are to be celebrated at the annual showcase of the hog trade, a swine spectacular that opens Friday and runs through Sunday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The show is held in the heart of Iowa, a state that accounts for one out of every four hogs raised for slaughter in the United States.

For the first time in the four-year history of the show, demonstrations are planned by the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit animal protection organization claims more than 350,000 members and makes no secret that it opposes a diet that includes meat.

“See meat for what it really is: the antibiotic and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal,” Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s national director, has written.

The protest is planned for noon Saturday outside the gates to the fairgrounds. It will include a display of a glass container filled with what PETA describes as “the hidden ingredients of hot dogs--nasty bits of animals such as lips, tongues, eyelids and other unmentionables . . .”

A “This Little Piggy Doesn’t Want to Go to Slaughter” banner will greet visitors, PETA says.

The group says it will challenge pork industry leaders to tell the public what goes into hot dogs.

Charles Harness, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, the industry group that sponsors the show, says the farm group won’t cooperate.

“That’s a media event,” he said. “They are looking for television coverage. We won’t do anything to help, and we would urge pork producers and consumers to ignore them.”

The Pork Expo is expected to attract 50,000 to 75,000 people.

In addition to the hoopla, the trade show is a chance to catch up on new farming techniques, gawk at gadgets, buy breeding stock and see what competitors are up to at home and abroad.

Discussion of animal rights has been the subject of seminars in past shows, as has development of guidelines for animal care. This year, the seminars focus more on farm management and farm safety.

But the industry has not forgotten animal rights activists.

“PETA has a constitutional right to defend their view and I would defend that. But I strongly disagree with what they’re about,” says John Hardin, the Danville, Ind., hog farmer who heads the pork council.

He is no fan of PETA.

“I think they totally misrepresent what animal agriculture is about, and in their zeal they seek to confuse and inflame the public,” he said.

This year, PETA is casting a shadow over an industry that should be jubilant about the rising fortunes of the swine trade.

Iowa farmers who raise hogs from birth to market have not had a money-losing month since September, 1989, according to economists at Iowa State University.

Livestock economist Glenn Grimes at the University of Missouri says demand for pork continued to rise early this year, despite the slowdown in the economy. He estimates that demand grew by 3% to 4% in the first four months of 1991.

Since 1985, demand has increased an average of a half percent a year, according to Grimes.

That is the period during which the pork industry has been conducting an intense producer-financed promotion campaign, “Pork: The Other White Meat,” to emphasize leaner and more nutritious cuts.