PRETTY important gentlemen" was how my Uncle Dean used to reply to questions about the animal he was so passionate about, when - until his recent death - he was one of the premier pig buyers in South Australia. "People would quite often wander up to him in the pub and say: "How do you put up with the smell of all those pigs?"
The reply was always fairly simple - he would just say that it was the smell of money.
Pigs seem to have fallen out of fashion in general mainstream farming - it was not that many years ago that most mixed farms always had a few pigs.
Household scraps, dairy byproducts and low-value grain were easily distributed through the pigsty and the average farmer had a nice little income. Then there were the killers that were either in the freezer or hanging in a coolroom having been cured and smoked through recipes sometimes handed down through generations.
The complexion of the pig market in this State has changed immensely, even in my relatively short time involved in the livestock industry.
In the good or bad old days of Gepps Cross, depending on your point of view, pigs represented a significant part of a stock agent's income.
Such were the numbers yarded that there were enough to supply at least seven auctioneers with a hectic Tuesday schedule. Elders, Dalgetys, Southern Farmers, Bennett & Fisher, Oates Ltd, House of Lindner and Austral Livestock had dedicated pig staff.
And gaining a substantial market share was every bit as competitive and important as the cattle, sheep and lambs.
As in any competitive environment, there were the 'characters' who flourished and those who failed the test that the pressure of such a crucible could exert.
I will say now that I am an unashamed fan of 'Deano', a buyer for Conroy's Smallgoods for as long as I can remember.
The association was that long that Andrew Conroy could put it down only to somewhere in the late 1960s.
His colleagues of those days have come and gone from the industry and in many cases have left the mortal coil. The late Bob Conroy and his sons, Pat and Andrew, were a constant in Dean's life and his loyalty to them was unquestioned.
I remain an admirer of the Conroy family, along with his great mate John McKay, because of the loyalty they returned in the last few years of Dean's life when he still felt a part of the industry despite being confined to a wheelchair and unable to access his beloved markets.
Dean used to make monthly pilgrimages to the West Coast to buy pigs on-property, forging lifelong bonds with pig producers who previously had only a phone call from their agent to assess how their pigs were priced.
Relationships became so strong that the long journey became unnecessary, because the trust was so evident that buyer and vendor were confident that the price and product were both right, and pigs were sent as the slaughter program demanded.
*Full report in Stock Journal, January 19 issue, 2012.
