ASSUMPTION - A pork project rolled into Central Illinois on Monday that has nothing to do with wasting public money - and might just generate a big cash return for local companies such as Assumption-based GSI Group Inc.

Legislative pork is usually the derisive term in Illinois for lawmakers' pet projects that cost plenty and achieve little. But the Illinois Department of Agriculture believes where there are real hogs, there is real money to be made, and is currently taking 31 foreign hog farmers and pork industry executives on a three-day tour of the state's pork industry.

Monday afternoon included a stop of several hours at GSI which manufactures equipment used in handling and storing grain that feeds hogs. The visiting delegation, including people from Mexico, Vietnam and China, toured the manufacturing facilities and got to meet company executives.

One of the tour organizers is Amparo Garza Lang, the Illinois Department of Agriculture's Mexico-City based Director of Agriculture for Latin America and the Caribbean. It's her job to promote Land of Lincoln agricultural products and says the best way to do that is bring the potential buyers right to the sellers' home base.

"Illinois is an easy sell, really," she explained. "We have big, well-known quality companies like Caterpillar and John Deere and we have the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the big center where pork bellies are traded. People want to come here."

Lang says it's hard to put precise figures on the amount of business that is generated by visits like this, but says Illinois companies do very well. "I can't estimate the total trade in dollars," she added. "But it would be a lot."

Robert Dowson, an international marketing representative for the Department of Agriculture, said GSI was a leading equipment manufacturer and a regular stop on these visits. "It's going very well so far and these people are in Illinois to buy things like swine breeding stock, equipment and feed ingredients," he added. "Illinois has a lot to offer them."

The tour started Monday and features 12 hour days packed with visits to farms, manufacturers and the big trading centers in Chicago. Director Lang said there wasn't much time for sight-seeing. "They don't come for that," she said. "They come to see if they can find the technology to improve their farms."

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@;herald-review.com or 421-7977.