Almost 50 nations will be represented at the World Pork Expo which opens this week at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
Sheila Warrick is general manager for the 28th annual event, which she says will be much larger this year.
“We’re actually up to almost 900 exhibit spaces this year all throughout the fairgrounds,” Warrick says. “We’re completely sold out in the Varied Industries Building, in the Agriculture Building, we’re around the Swine Barn and throughout a lot of outdoor space this year. You’ll definitely almost need two days to get through everything.”
The three-day expo features a series of seminars and workshops, including some which might not be associated with raising hogs. “We added a topic this year on cyber security,” Warrick says. “People might not think that’s applicable to a pork operation, but it is. As everything goes to more of a database management and you’re putting all of your operations online, that information is obviously important to producers so it doesn’t get lost or interrupted.”
Last year, 23,000 visitors attended the expo, which opens on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)