The National Pork Board has voted to “donate” 2-million dollars toward funding the Fair Oaks Pig Adventure Center in northwestern Indiana. But there are strings attached to the donation. The contribution will take the form of an initial one-million dollars in seed money and an additional one-million once sponsors have raised 7.6-million dollars of the 9.6-million that will be needed for construction. Also, the board stipulated that its contribution must go to the education center and that the board must approve initial proposed messaging.

The proposed Fair Oaks Pig Adventure will include a pork education center and a nearby commercial swine farrowing/gestation operation suitable for touring. The pig site will be positioned as a national destination. Michael Platt, executive director of Indiana Pork, believes – the level of trust consumers have in pork farmers will increase as they see firsthand the ways in which the animals are handled and cared for in a modern swine farm environment.

Board members see the education component as a “high impact” activity, and plans for a distant learning process as a means to capture a national consumer education experience, both well within the responsibilities of the Pork Board, which manages the Nation Pork Checkoff.

Courtesy: NAFB News