000620 Indianapolis Holds World Pork Expo

Indianapolis, IN - No matter which way you looked at the Indiana State Fairgrounds - whether at the sizzling, 300-foot-long grill or the nonchalant passing of barbecue recipes - one thing was certain.

It was a bad day to be a pig.

The fluttering banners bearing the words “World Pork Expo,” the tractor-trailer-sized smoker capable of cooking 7,000 pounds of meat at a time, the pig races, the “PigCasso” art show. It was all enough to make a curled tail stand up straight.

But for your average pork lover, it was simply fantastic.

“I look forward to it every year,” said Lori Ann Robertson. She owns 650 sows in Dukedom, Tenn., and comes to see new technology and meet fellow hog farmers.

“It has to do with what I do for a living,” she said. “There's lots of new information that can really help.”

There are also free samples - which attracts most non-farming people. You can't throw a hambone without hitting someone doling out barbecued, sauteed, spiced, dried, pulled, center-cut or de-boned versions of “the other white meat.”

Dennis Gienger is responsible for a large part of that pork distribution. The hog farmer from Iowa's Tama County is known as the “Big Grill Chairman,” which in World Pork Expo circles is pretty much on par with being king of the universe.

On Thursday that grill used about 6,000 pounds of charcoal to cook 12,000 center-cut pork chops, which were slathered in barbecue sauce, slapped into buns and handed out.

“I think if you're going to be dedicated to the industry, to raising hogs, you also have to be dedicated to promotion,” Gienger said.

In part, that's what the 13th annual installment of this international trade show is about. That explains the drawing for a stuffed sow doll (complete with litter), the various piggy knickknacks at The Pork Schop, and Arnold, the plastic, radio-controlled, talking pig.

Cindy Cunningham of the National Pork Producers Council said the expo is the world's largest pork-specific event, attracting producers from 50 different countries. It's expected to draw about 50,000 people by the time it ends Saturday.

But not everyone is happy to see the expo, which alternates between Indianapolis and Des Moines, Iowa. Thursday morning, an anonymous activist dressed in a pig costume dumped two tons of manure in front of the Indianapolis hotel where many pork expo participants are staying. The dump happened while a group from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protested factory hog farming.

For producers like Robertson, that's all a bunch of hogwash.

“I've just been raised with it,” she said of her life among swine. “It's something I do, and I love to do.”

That sentiment was echoed by Rick and Marcie Campbell, proprietors of the expo's pig races. They're known as Professor Elroy P. Swineheart and The Pig Lady. They speak lovingly of their group of pigs, and promise that the little racers never get sent to market when their athletic days are through.

“Mario Hamdretti,” for example, will eventually be used for breeding, The Pig Lady explained.

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