Courtesy of IPPA

Iowa Pork Producers Association Producer Education Director Zoey Dinkla may have just started the job, but already has some ideas on what she’d like to do.

She says that one of the biggest things she’d like to do as the Producer Education Director is to keep Iowa number one in the nation for pork production. Dinkla adds that one of the best ways to do that is to make sure Iowa’s pork producers can fend off foreign diseases. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio one of the diseases she’s focusing on at the moment.

“So African Swine Fever (ASF) is top of mind for foreign animal disease. It’s kind of hit some countries internationally, and so we’re just protecting our borders, ensuring that it stays out of the United States. And then, we are landlocked, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t affect us. So ASF would be the biggest one that we’re trying to get a hold of right now.”

Dinkla adds that something else she can do to help keep Iowa in that number one spot is the education of both producers and consumers of pork. She mentions that showing consumers the care taken by Iowa’s pork producers, and the quality of the pork that comes from the state will help keep people buying that product.