Hog farmers buying N.D. slaughter plant

Hog farmers in the Upper Midwest and Canada's prairie provinces plan to buy a majority interest in a North Dakota slaughter plant, in what one official calls a historic moment for the region's pork industry.

The Cloverdale Growers' Alliance Cooperative, a group of about 60 hog farmers in North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota, has supplied the Mandan-based Cloverdale Foods Co. for the past decade. The alliance now has signed a letter of intent to buy a controlling interest in Cloverdale's Minot plant, said Dunn Center rancher Daryl Dukart.

The co-op is putting together a business plan and soon will begin a push to sign up more farmers in its current area and in South Dakota and Canada, said Dukart, the general manager of the group.

"We're hoping to have this done in the next 90 days," he said. "It's been 10 years of continuous work. This has kind of been a producer dream."

Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Cloverdale will remain a minority partner in the plant and will continue to handle management. T.J. Russell, the company's president and CEO, said all 50 full-time workers will keep their jobs.

Russell and Dukart said the new arrangement will guarantee farmers a market and provide them better returns for their hogs while creating a more reliable hog supply and reducing procurement costs for Cloverdale.

The company, which has food processing plants in Mandan and Stanton, makes deli meats and other products, including the official hot dog for sale at Seattle Mariners baseball games in Safeco Field.

Russell said the new arrangement also might lead to sales to some Pacific Rim markets. "They really look to see that there's a connection all the way to the farmer," he said. "It's what our customers are looking for."

The grower group currently can supply about 60,000 hogs a year to the Minot plant. Russell said that is less than half of what the facility slaughters.

The co-op hopes to gain enough members to have the capacity for 150,000 hogs annually, Dukart said.

Russell said he expects most hog farmers who sell to the Minot plant to join the grower group.

"If you raise any livestock, part of your risk is to make sure you have a place to ... have them processed," he said.

Craig Jarolimek, a managing partner of the North Dakota Sow Center LLP farrowing operation, which ships young pigs to Iowa to be fattened for slaughter, does not expect opposition to the Cloverdale Growers' Alliance plan to own the Minot plant.

"Anytime the pork industry is growing, expanding and utilizing our natural assets in North Dakota, such as our land base, grain and our climate, I think it's good," he said.

Jarolimek said non-alliance farmers who want to sell to the plant will have to make a business decision on whether it will benefit them to join the grower group.

The North Dakota Sow Center does not send hogs to the Cloverdale plant.

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PASCO, Wash. (AP) — Asparagus growers are licking their chops over the prospect of more record prices but fear much of their production might never reach consumers because of labor shortages.

"It's a growers' market," said Alan Schreiber, executive director of the Washington Asparagus Commission, during Tuesday's annual meeting of the organization. "Since 2005, there's been a 23 percent increase in price."

He predicted that asparagus prices would rise to 65 cents a pound this year. Farmers received a record average price of 59 cents last year.

Even so, some of the more than 50 growers who attended the meeting said they would have a tough time adding acreage even at 70 cents. Wheat, corn and hay also are bringing record prices and are easier to produce without fierce competition for seasonal labor or picking by hand, Schreiber said.

"Asparagus isn't an easy crop," he said. "There are growers who are reluctant to plant asparagus and stay in because they aren't certain it will be the most profitable crop for them, especially with the uncertainty of labor."

Washington, the nation's No. 2 asparagus producer behind California, produced 30 million pounds in 2007, down from 38 million pounds in 2006. Plantings this year are projected at 8,250 acres, down 8 percent drop from 9,000 acres last year.