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A new section has started in pig333. From now and monthly, international experts will offer us their points of view on the pork markets. We will publish opinions of different experts each month and will try to hear people from different countries in order to have a broader view of the international situation.
We start with "Understanding the market dynamics of feed ingredient costs" an article by Dr. Dennis DiPietre about feed costs, the single greatest cost of pork production. In it he explains than in last decades, feed ingredient costs were relatively flat. However, since 2006 when ethanol production reached a critical mass in the United States and began absorbing the historical supply cushion for corn stocks, feed ingredient prices have been very volatile. This makes managing costs and short term lines of credit for variable input acquisition especially difficult but nonetheless crucial both for realizing operating profit and gaining access to adequate leverage (debt). Next month he will take a look at how the information showed here can be used to make better pricing decisions.
Dr. DiPietre is a consultant to agricultural and food industries since the mid 1980s, he now consults full time both nationally and internationally with leading production companies, packers, genetics and pharmaceutical companies as well as industry associations. His practice focuses on innovation, precision production and marketing, cost containment, optimization modeling and negotiation.
