H@ms Marketing Services says U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel could impact export demand for pork resulting in lower hog prices.
Despite higher U.S. slaughter hog production increased U.S. slaughter capacity has been able to keep pace.
Tyler Fulton, the Director of Risk Management with h@ms Marketing Services, says U.S. production is expected to exceed last year's record levels by about five percent but so far we've been moving through it fairly well with cash markets generally steady to higher than at this time last year but there is uncertainty on the demand side.
Tyler Fulton-h@ms Marketing Services:
On the domestic side of the demand equation, we are looking really good.
More than anything else the strong economic growth that we've experienced both in Canada and the United States has provided a good base for consumer demand for pork and pork has been pretty well positioned in the context of its competitors, beef and chicken so things are really doing well on the domestic front.
The uncertainty probably comes more from the export side but recent export activity, in particular from the middle of February, suggests that pork exports were doing quite well.
In fact week to week we were actually up about 30 percent.
Now we're not at that level so far this year.