EMI Analytics says the anticipated cost of producing hogs is looking particularly positive this coming summer.
The USDA's March Hogs and Pigs report indicates the U.S. breeding herd is expanding and slaughter hog numbers this coming fall will be even higher than one year ago.
Dr. Steve Meyer, the Vice-President Pork Analysis with EMI Analytics, says right now pork producers need to be watching the same things they always have, the cost of production and the price of pigs.
Dr. Steve Meyer-EMI Analytics:
The cost of production side is really positive at the moment.
If we have normal weather going through the summer, we're going to have large crops and even lower cost of production than we've had the last 12 months.
Right now the futures market is covering for break evens in the upper 60s probably for the average U.S. producer on a carcass weight basis and that number could go down into the mid to lower 60s pretty easily with a normal kind of weather situation given the huge soybean acres we're going to have and the fact that we seem to have jumped this corn yield situation again due to a number of factors.
We think cost of production is going to be in pretty good shape.
The moisture conditions in the United States are very good right now and, as long as we can get it planted, I think we're going to be in pretty good shape on that.
Source : Farmscape