This afternoon I fly to Hannover, Germany. Eurotier, the world’s largest livestock trade show, is held there on alternate years. Early attendance estimates are 160,000 for the 3 day show next week.

I’ve never attended but I’ve seen the map of the exhibition grounds. Imagine 8-10 Varied Industries buildings from the Iowa State Fairgrounds (site of World Pork Expo) in one place full of livestock exhibits and you can begin to understand the scope of this show. There are more than 2 buildings dedicated to the swine industry.

I am speaking about production systems of the future at a pre-conference on Monday and plan on attending Eurotier on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how many of my predictions show up at the show and what the cost of the technology is.

Hannover is the same latitude as Saskatoon, Canada (52N) so day length will be relatively short. The early weather forecasts are for temperatures similar to what we’ve been experiencing in southern Minnesota the past few weeks.

Should be a good week of experiences for me and I’ll write about them in next weeks blog