These days, "fat pig" is an oxymoron.

Guest speaker Jeff Swenson told members and guests of the Portage Rotary Club Monday that a portion of pork tenderloin is as low in fat as a comparable-sized portion of skinless chicken breast.

That's due largely to the demands of pork consumers for leaner meat, which were fulfilled by major changes in the way hogs are fed and raised.

Swenson, a livestock specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, told about 25 Rotarians and guests at Dino's Restaurant in Portage that today's hog farms are not the same as they might remember from decades ago.

For one thing, almost no farmer keeps swine outdoors anymore.

With the exception of free-range pork, much of which is sold at farmers' markets, nearly all pork sold today comes from hogs that never spent a day out of doors.

Furthermore, the farmer that oversaw the birth and feeding of baby pigs probably isn't the same farmer who raised the hogs to market weight.

"Most producers today specialize in one segment of the industry," Swenson said. "They may farrow the pigs, then sell them to someone else to raise them for market."

And, if you want to see a hog operation, be prepared to arrive uncontaminated.

It's not unusual, Swenson said, for a hog operation to have a sign on its door warning outsiders to keep out, in order to lessen the likelihood that the animals will catch diseases from visiting humans.

"Sometimes, when I go to look at a farm, I'm actually asked to shower and change clothes before I can see the pigs," Swenson said. "One infected pig can infect the whole herd."

Sue Weyh, who has a pork operation with about 100 farrowing sows in the town of Lewiston, said she rarely allows visitors to see her operation, for those reasons.

"We have a few people we'll show our nursery," she said, "but not many."

Swenson said today's pork farmers typically like to keep antibiotics and other medications to a minimum in their animals, for the sake of the meat's purity. Unlike with dairy cattle, he noted, there are no hormones approved to enhance the growth of hogs.

Genetics and feeding techniques - some of them developed at Wisconsin state universities such as UW-Madison and UW-Platteville - have made pork live up to its well-known advertising slogan, "The Other White Meat," Swenson said.

That's due mainly to demand from pork eaters, and from grocers and restaurants that sell pork.

The changes in the industry started in the 1970s, Swenson said, when consumers were becoming more aware of the adverse health effects of diets high in saturated fat. Between 1970 and 1985, demand for pork dropped by about 4 percent per year, he said.

The demand has rebounded, and not just in the United States. Globally, he said, pork accounts for 39 percent of meat consumption, compared to 31 percent for poultry, 25 percent for beef and veal and 5 percent for lamb. This makes pork a major U.S. export.

But there are challenges that face the industry, Swenson said, such as public perception about the well-being of hogs raised in confinements, and environmental issues.

Anyone who has ever driven in rural areas, he said, knows that hog manure smells worse than any other kind. Scientists at state universities are conducting research to find out why, Swenson said.

This prompted Rotarian George Beasley to ask whether Wisconsin has many large pork operations, as are common in neighboring states such as Iowa and Illinois.

Swenson's short answer: Although more and more hogs are coming from larger operations, in Wisconsin the numbers of large operations are small compared to surrounding states.

That's largely because Wisconsin lost nearly all of its hog slaughtering plants during the farm crisis of the 1980s. Even food companies with operations in Wisconsin, such as Hormel or Oscar Mayer, don't slaughter the pork that they use, Swenson said. They buy it already slaughtered, usually in states such as Minnesota and Iowa.

But, Beasley noted, large hog operations often result in large pools of swine waste.

"And, if we get a big rain like we had last June, and that stuff runs off into a creek, you could have a real environmental problem," he said.

Hog manure, when managed well, can be a vital source of soil nutrients, especially at a time when grain farmers are concerned about the high cost of fertilizer, Swenson said.

"But," he noted, "hogs are not the most pleasant smelling things when you drive down the road."

However, at least one disease often associated with pork - the parasitic disease trichinosis - has virtually been eliminated in modern pork production, Swenson said.

Even so, he said, it's a good idea to cook all pork to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees F.

 Hog wild, by the numbers

• Number of head of hogs produced in Columbia County in 2007: about 14,500.

• Number of head of hogs produced in Columbia County in 2006: about 14,000. (Columbia County was one of the few Wisconsin counties to post an increase.)

• Number of head of hogs produced in Wisconsin in 2007: 440,000.

• Number of pork operations statewide in 2007: 2,002.

• Number of hog operations in Wisconsin with 2,000 or more head of hogs: 50, accounting for about 38 percent of the hogs produced in the state.

• The value of Columbia County's hog production in 2007: $367,165.

• Average weight of a hog at butchering time: 256 pounds.

• Average weight of a Wisconsin hog at butchering time: 400 pounds.

• Weight at which a "pig" is considered a "hog:" About 130 pounds.

SOURCE: Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection

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