Milwaukee Hosts International Mink Show

FUR COMMISSION USA PRESS RELEASE, JANUARY 13, 2000
Milwaukee Hosts International Mink Show
HUNDREDS OF MINK FARMERS will gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 14 to 16 to celebrate the 53rd International Mink Show. “The International Mink Show for 2000 will focus on quality,” stated Jim Wachter, a Wisconsin mink farmer and volunteer with the show’s organizing committee. “Providing a quality pelt is how one competes successfully in an intensely competitive global marketplace.”
The International Mink Show includes displays of farm equipment, a fashion show, and seminars on topics as varied as feed, global markets and security.
To help farmers attain the best quality pelts, the International Mink Show will host a pelt grading workshop on Saturday, January 15 at 9:30 A.M. in the Baton Rouge Hall at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, 4747 S. Howell Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53207, (414) 481-8000. Representatives of North American Fur Auctions and Seattle Fur Exchange, the fur farmers’ cooperative marketing associations, will lead the workshop, educating the participants on the finer points of choosing the best quality pelts: size, color, coverage, and density. The media are invited to attend this pelt-grading workshop.
The International Mink Show is organized by a volunteer committee working in association with mink farmers’ breeders’ associations and Fur Commission USA, a non-profit trade association representing over 400 mink-farming families on over 400 farms in 31 states.
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the US Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin is the Number One fur-producing state in the union, with Wisconsin mink farmers producing 800,500 pelts in 1998, up a substantial 31% from 1994 (611,000). With its thriving dairy industry, Wisconsin is able to supply the secondary industry of mink farming with a continuous supply of agricultural by-products for feedstuff.
NASS reports a total of 2.94 million pelts produced in the U.S. in 1998, compared to 2.62 million in 1994, an increase of 12% over five years. The total farms in the US producing mink pelts dropped from 457 in 1994 to 439 in 1998. However, the 12% increase in pelt production since 1994 confirms that mink farms, in common with the US farming sector as a whole, are consolidating, with fewer farms producing more. The leading State by number of farms in 1998 was Utah with 115, followed by Wisconsin (94) and Minnesota (44).
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For further information contact Fur Commission USA.
To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit FCUSA’s Fur on Film.
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For further information contact Fur Commission USA.
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© 1998-2011 Fur Commission USA