Pork prices fall

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Not much more than a year ago, pork producers were giddy with the prices they were receiving for pigs. That has all changed.

Pork prices are reported in several ways. Ontario Pork reports the 100 per cent formula price on Nov. 25 is $133.44/100 kilograms. A month ago that price was $176.11. A year ago, the same price was $201.86.

According to Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt, live hog prices in the United States fell to below US$40 per hundredweight last week, the lowest level since November 2009. (To put prices into perspective, the cost of production is likely near US$50 but soybean meal is cheaper than it was.) Prices are set in the United States where there’s more pork than before and demand is down. With a low Canadian dollar there are more pig exports to the United States as well as increased national production.

Meanwhile, chicken and beef production are both up, and bacon and sausages have a bit of a bad name with consumers right now. “Weakness in demand has apparently been affected by the World Health Organization’s announcement around October 26 linking bacon and processed meats to cancer in humans,” Hurt writes in his regular pork column. He expects the long-term damage will be less than that in the short term. “However if there is persistence of those (negative) messages in coming months and years, this can set in place a long-term change in consumption patterns,” he writes.

Hurt says American producers will lose $18 to $20 a head for the last quarter of 2015 and pork prices are likely to stay below US$50 for the next year. BF