Fair Enough
I agree with the late Harry Truman, who once said, "No man should be allowed to be the president who does not understand hogs, or hasn't been around a manure pile." Call me old-fashioned, but I think raising hogs teaches you something about economics and about life in general.
To successfully raise a hog to market weight, you have to be a good manager. You have to know which feed is the best for the age of the animal, and you have to make sure the animal is healthy. One year, my father made the switch to high lysine corn. I noticed that the pigs would eat that corn and refuse the regular corn. That was an amazing lesson.
Being a good manager means you also have to deal with manure. Truman understood that hogs are prolific poopers, and the farmer has to figure out how to dispose of the waste. Today, we have a more advanced understanding of manure; it's not animal waste—it's a crop nutrient! Today's confinement barns are equipped with slatted floors. All the manure falls to a pit below the main floor. As long as the pit is cleaned out, the pigs can enjoy a relatively clean environment.
But I think Truman had something else in mind when he said that famous quote. Most farmers in the 1940s kept livestock. They understood the basics of pork production and that raising hogs required you to work hard. That remains true even today. Consumers respect farmers who work hard. If you can talk the language of hogs, you can strike up a conversation with just about anybody in the coffee house or the county fair.
When I was growing up, I would accompany my father when we sold hogs to one of those independent buying stations. There was one just east of Mentone, located next to the railroad tracks. Inside the office were other farmers who had just delivered their hogs. They were waiting for the animals to be weighed and, ultimately, their checks. We would all have a bottle of pop or candy bar and chat about the high school basketball game. The one thing we all had in common was hogs.
The highfalutin people may laugh at this, but if you understand the language of pork production, then you will have earned the respect of your neighbors. To be a leader in your community, you have to earn respect. The same is true if you want to serve as president.
I'm here to make the claim that Truman's famous quote is still true today. Leaders need to understand how to work hard, earn respect and deal with problems. Too many of them fail on many of these points. On the positive side, all the 4-H'ers showing hogs today are receiving perfect training to be future leaders.