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Pork Checkoff awards innovation in research and education at ASAS

March 28, 2007 — Angela DeMirjyn

The Pork Checkoff and the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) teamed up to present two awards for swine innovation in research and one for swine innovation in education to researchers and academics present at the 2007 ASAS Midwestern Section meeting in Des Moines, Iowa on March 19-21.

Jared S. Bates, a Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln received one of the Checkoff-sponsored swine innovation awards in research for his work in determining the importance of genetic and environmental effects on the incidence of Porcine Circovirus Associated Diseases, or PCVAD, in pigs.

The second swine innovation award in research was given to Guowu Xu, currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota. Xu's research is focused on evaluating the effects of feeding diets containing varying levels of corn dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) on growth performance and pork quality in grow-finishing pigs. The project for which Xu received the award examined the effect of corn-soybean diets with 10 percent DDGS on pork fat quality in pigs in commercial production.

The swine innovation award in education was granted to Tim Safranski of the University of Missouri, Columbia. Safranski has been the State Swine Breeding Specialist since 1996. At Missouri he has responsibilities in extension and research in genetics and reproductive management. He also teaches the senior level capstone class in swine production. The project for which he was awarded was titled Characteristics of U.S. Boar Studs.

Mark Boggess, director of animal science for the Pork Checkoff, presented the awards and introduced the winners with this quote , "The challenges for the pork industry are huge and compelling. If there has even a need for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, the time is now."

The Pork Checkoff sponsors a financial award and a plaque for the winners. The ASAS' Animal Science committee selects the winning projects from abstracts submitted to the conference. "Through this award we are recognizing those who are working to beat these challenges and help U.S. producers stay competitive," Boggess said. "In some way, we hope this effort helps to recruit more of this country's best and brightest researchers and academics to careers in the pork industry."

Angela DeMirjyn, NPB Science and Technology Writer