Liljedahl reflects on past year as IPPA president

Essex native Dennis Liljedahl is reflecting on his successful tenure as president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
Liljedahl has a rich history in pork production, operating a three-generation family farm based in Essex. The farm was once a farrow-to finish-operation, but has transitioned to a wean to finish operation.
“We’re independent, so we buy weaner pigs and sell them six months later. The operation is typical, but the overall farm itself may not be considered typical in the sense that we’re independent. We have room for roughly 1,200 pigs to finish. After we sell, then it’s time for us to get a new group to start the process over,” Liljedahl commented.
The IPPA Board is made up of district directors that assure every part of the state is represented. From that board, there is an executive committee, and if offered to serve on that committee, as Liljedahl was, members are given the opportunity for further leadership. Liljedahl served as president-elect of the IIPA board in 2020 before beginning his term as president in January 2021. Liljedahl said his role in the position was typical of any organization.
“You’re kind of the face of the organization, and you attend more events representing the organization, conduct the business meetings, and are more involved with the day-to-day workings of the board than a typical board member would be,” Liljedahl said.
Sometimes it seems that Southwest Iowa is overlooked by some of the statewide organizations when choosing board members and presidents, and Liljedahl said being able to serve in the post was a big honor.
“At times, I’ve felt the same way about representation from Southwest Iowa, but then I think maybe we’re a bit narrow-minded. During my time as president, Jeff Jorgenson of Sidney was president of the Iowa Soybean Association, and Carl Jardon of Imogene was chair of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, so at least for one year, there was a concentration of barnyard groups that were led by members of Southwest Iowa,” commented Liljedahl.
One of the things that can be forgotten, Liljedahl said, is how expansive Southwest Iowa can be perceived as.
“When I think of Southwest Iowa, I think of Fremont, Page, Montgomery, and Pottawattamie County, but really, anything west of I-35 and south of I-80 is certainly Southwest Iowa, so I think sometimes we forget about those areas, and there are representatives from areas that consider themselves as from Southwest Iowa, just not as far Southwest as we are,” Liljedahl explained.
The IPPA board and the president all approach each year with a number of proposed goals they try to reach.
“Overall the goal and the vision is to advance pork production in Iowa, and for the past several years, foreign animal disease preparedness has been a key issue, and continues to be because if a foreign disease comes, such as the African Swine Fever, that would devastate the industry because we export so much product,” said Liljedahl. “Those markets would be closed to us immediately if African Swine Flu was detected. It’s been an ongoing effort to prevent the entry of any foreign animal disease, and to be prepared if it does happen. We have plans and information in place to minimize the impact.”
Liljedahl was president-elect when the COVID-19 pandemic started sweeping the nation in 2020, and it still remained a heavy issue during his term as president in 2021. He said that COVID-19 had a large impact on not only the IPPA, but for pork producers in general.
“During the first six months was the initial shock, when frontline workers were getting COVID, and the plants were shutting down, and the economy was shutting down. We went through a phase where people had pigs but the packing plants weren’t in operation, and there was a large back-up of large animals waiting to go to the market. As an organization, we did a lot of things, but they weren’t the typical things we were used to. One of the biggest issues we faced was how to help keep pigs from growing, which was counterintuitive to pork producers. There was a lot of cooperation with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Iowa State University to mitigate as many of those issues as we could.”
According to Liljedahl, the IPPA, in response to COVID-19, organized a “Pass the Pork” program when pork producers had a hard time finding a market to sell their hogs.
“The program allowed for pork to be donated to their local feed lockers, which was then donated to local food banks, although that had challenges as well, as the local lockers are all very busy. But we tried to support not only producers, but the communities that had packing plants that were impacted greatly during that time,” Liledahl advised.
Other impacts were the cancellation of the Iowa Pork Congress and the cancellation of all of the normal trade missions that occur every year. Even after all this time has passed, the issue has still not gone away.
“Hopefully the harvesting plants will get back to having enough employees to do everything they want to do. So far, they have enough to harvest the animals, but I know they’d like to further process some products, they simply don’t have the labor supply to do that,” Liljedahl stated.
In addition to COVID-19, during his tenure as president-elect and president, Liljedahl also saw a changeover in presidential administrations from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Liljedahl said there were key differences between the two.
“The prior administration went down the tariff route, which we didn’t think was the proper route, but that’s what happened. So far, those tariffs haven’t been lifted under the new administration. With the current administration, they might be more focused on environmental regulations, but producers have faced the same types of issues between both administrations,” explained Liljedahl.
As for overall production, Liljedahl said Iowa remains the number one state in regards to pork production.
“We were producing a quarter, but now I think it’s up to a third of the nation’s hogs are raised in the state of Iowa,” Liljedahl said.
Liljedahl will serve this year on the IPPA Board as past-president, and said this year will remain a busy one due to the cancellation of all the trade missions scheduled for 2020 and 2021.
“I recently returned from a trade mission in Mexico, and that was a big change, as in the prior years those trade missions just did not happen. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig was with us on this last mission, and his comments to several of the groups was that the last trade mission the Iowa Pork Producers and the Iowa Department of Economic Development made was to Mexico, and now two years later, we’re back in Mexico, because it’s such an important customer. The important point is that it had been two years since that last trade mission because of COVID in the United States and other countries,” Liljedahl commented.
Following this year, Liljedahl’s term on the executive board will expire, which he said will create opportunities for other Iowa pork producers to serve on the executive board in the coming years.