The Carthage System is a network of independent farm families that work with Professional Swine Management (PSM), a management company supporting farms across the pork-production chain. A 2017 feature documented the system’s expansion and the operational demands that came with it; its sow-count figures describe that period, not the system today.
What the Carthage System is—and what PSM does
The Carthage System is the group of individual farm families. PSM is the management company they engage to coordinate production expertise and services. PSM says it works with family farms through breeding, gestation, farrowing, nursery and finishing, with a shared aim of improving animal health, genetic performance and production costs across the value chain. It describes shared expertise, economies of scale and expanded services as benefits for farm owners. Its official history dates PSM’s start to 2000, amid producers’ shift toward new business structures and coordinated management. Carthage System · About the Carthage System · Our history
How much did the system grow?
A 2017 Successful Farming feature reported that the system managed 145,000 sows the previous year and 175,000 at the time of publication. Most of the growth described came from new construction. Some new sow farms were within 50 miles of Carthage, while others were in Kansas and Nebraska. These are historical article-time figures; they are not current counts or evidence of a present expansion rate. The official pages cited here do not provide an updated sow total. Successful Farming / Agriculture.com’s 2017 feature
What challenges did the expansion bring?
Labor, retention and training
Joe Connor identified labor availability as a major concern, particularly for herd work that must be done every day. The feature also described ongoing staff training as necessary amid employee turnover. In a system operating across multiple farms, staffing is not simply a matter of filling positions: consistent routines depend on workers being trained to carry out essential tasks reliably.
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Getting pigs started consistently
The feature said contract-growing arrangements could lead to uneven results in how growers started pigs. Carthage’s response, as reported at the time, was to place service staff on farms to help improve consistency. That example illustrates the management challenge of maintaining a shared production approach when work is distributed among separate operations.
Weaning age and production flow
The 2017 article reported a target weaning age of 23 days, up from 21 days. It linked the older, heavier pig with better throughput and greater resilience during the first week after placement. This was the practice described at article time, not a verified current PSM standard.
Customer-specific housing and production requirements
Gestation arrangements varied with customers’ purchasing requirements. The feature cited pen gestation for pigs destined for a new Clemens Foods plant, as well as free-access stalls and other facility-specific arrangements. This meant farms had to accommodate different specifications rather than rely on a single housing setup across the system.
Disease prevention and biosecurity
The feature reported that PSM had a PCR lab at its headquarters to identify PRRS, PED virus, influenza, coronavirus and other threats. It also described shower-in/shower-out training and truck-wash facilities. Those are reported capabilities at the time of publication; the cited material does not establish whether they remain unchanged today.
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Export exposure and foreign animal disease
Connor warned that the industry needed to export more pork while a foreign animal disease could disrupt exports. His statement, “The industry has to export significantly more pork,” was a historical concern in the feature’s context—not a current export forecast or evidence of a particular disease event.
How PSM’s management model works
PSM describes a turnkey farm-management option as well as a la carte support. Its services page lists day-to-day production oversight and emergency coordination alongside operational functions such as maintenance, cost monitoring, audits and regulatory visits. It also describes animal-health protocols, standard operating procedures, staff training, biosecurity, animal-welfare and husbandry protocols, and using production records to review trends. For logistics, PSM says it coordinates animal transportation and scheduling, truck-wash practices and driver certification requirements. PSM services
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For farms, the model is a way to access management capabilities across production and logistics while remaining part of an independent family-farm network. The pages describe the services offered, but do not provide current performance results or a comparative scorecard against other production systems.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can farms outside the system work with PSM?
PSM’s homepage separately advertises consulting for clients who are not joining the Carthage System, naming marketing, records, nutrition and environmental planning. It also offers notifications when Carthage System wean pigs are available for open sale. These are distinct from the core farm-family management relationship; the page does not establish any referral or affiliate arrangement. Carthage System
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Adapting as pork production changes
Connor’s official-history-page statement captures the system’s stated approach to change: “The biggest challenge is change. We can’t worry about it, we need to move with that change – to harness it.” The expansion feature shows what that meant operationally at the time: adding capacity while addressing labor and training, pig-start consistency, customer specifications, disease preparedness and market exposure. Our history
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