By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NPPC President Don Butler and a group of pork industry representatives took to Capitol Hill in the days following the first confirmation of H1N1 in an American swine to testify in front of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry. The so-called “swine flu” is exacerbating problems for an already-reeling U.S. pork industry, Butler and other industry experts testified.

“To stop foreclosures and bankruptcies and for us to continue providing consumers around the globe with the safest, most nutritious meat protein, we need to find a way out of this two-year-old crisis,” Butler stated. He told Congress that over the past 24 months, pork producers have lost an average of $23 on each hog marketed and that “things look bleak moving forward.”

NPPC research indicated a short-term reduction in pork prices immediately...