<b>By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER<br>
Ohio Correspondent</b> </p><p>

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With a click of the mouse, the Internet surfer is invited to tour five Ohio pork producers’ farms and learn about hog farming today, at www.Ohioporktour.com<br>
The goal of this slick new campaign put out by the Ohio Pork Producers Council (OPPC) and the Ohio Soybean Council is to improve agriculture’s presence on the Web, and beyond.<br>
“We want the viewer to come in the barns and take a look around,” said Jennifer Keller, OPPC’s director of marketing and education. “That’s what we try to do in the video, have the open-door policy and have farmers tell their story.”<br>
The website is focused on three different areas: animal care, the environment and social issues, such as how the industry has changed.<br>
“It’s about how we raise pigs and what we do on the farm,” Keller said.<br>
“In these videos, we’re trying to give people insight into life on the farm and how modern hog farms really run.”<br>
Five videos are currently online and 12 are planned. A new video is released each month. The latest features Jackie Roughton, who takes care of day-old piglets at Cooper Farms.<br>
Earlier videos show Ryan McClure inside a finishing barn and Tony Bornhorst cooking pork at the Eldora Speedway and talking about how the industry has changed. In another video, Kyle Brown talks about life on the farm and his farrow-to-finish operation.<br>
Bornhorst has been farming with his brother, Ted, since 1979. His video at the speedway filmed Ohio pork producers cooking and serving 1,080 pounds of pork loin before a race on Labor Day weekend. “I’m real particular about how the pork needed to be prepared, cooking temperatures, and we talked a little bit about that because they used the shots of the loin being cooked and cut ... it really looks appetizing,” Tony Bornhorst said.<br>
“I also talked about our operation; with the Ohioporktour.com, we’re trying to let folks know that as margins get smaller, the size of the operations had to get bigger in order to meet parameters for you to have enough income to live,” said Bornhorst, who is the past president of the OPPC. “We talked about outside pressure – the animal rights groups that would prefer us not to be in business and for animal protein not to be used as a food source.”<br>
The video also shows Bornhorst’s daughter, Alanna, then-OPPC Queen, passing out samples and hearing the recipients’ enthusiastic reactions.<br>
The Bornhorst brothers have a 180-sow farrow-to-finish operation and 145-acres of cropland.<br>
“We are unique in that we raise mostly hogs on straw bedding and in large groups,” Tony Bornhorst said. “It is a little different style, but it has worked over the years. I believe that 99 percent of farmers really care about what we’re doing and how we treat the environment and how we interact with our neighbors.<br>
“But it’s that one percent that gets on the front page ... it portrays a really bad image.”<br>
The industry image has continually been gaining momentum and importance within OPPC’s budget and focus, Keller said.
“We’re just trying to show the diversity of Ohio pork producers,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of different types of pork producers in Ohio, different ages; we’re trying to showcase those.” For teachers, the website also has a curriculum component that meets Ohio standards.<br>
The Ohio Soy Bean Council financed most of the cost for the project, she added. “What we’re trying to do is tell our side of the story,” Bornhorst said.