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Growing the pork pie takes volume times price

With beef production shrinking, why aren't we seeing an increase in pork demand? That’s the question Glynn Tonsor has been fielding lately from the pork industry and beyond, and one he doesn’t try to dodge. While increased revenue is needed to grow the industry, the Kansas State University agricultural economics professor and author of the monthly Meat Demand Monitor says attacking another industry “usually doesn't correspond with the mentality of growing the pie.”

“Going back to 2022, we expected changes in the pork industry itself to have a much bigger impact on pork demand than anything that was going on in the beef or in the chicken industry. It's important to note that, based on 2022 data, that specifically because macroeconomics have declined, consumers’ footing, affordability and so forth, it's certainly worse for a lot of households here in September of 23 than it was in 2022,” Tonsor says. “Changes within the U.S. pork industry have a lot larger effect on domestic demand than things are going on in competing industries.”

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Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.