Dennis DiPietre

While the remainder of the year will likely have challenges a little deeper than most are thinking now, it is not looking like a disaster…

There is a lot of uncertainty about what will happen to the US pork export picture now that President Trump has pulled out of TPP and wants to renegotiate NAFTA.

USA: PEDv created more fever than just in the pigs.

Export markets can keep profits flowing even if the industry nudges production into record territory.

Continued emergence of producer owned packing is setting up a new closed market channel which may evolve its own pricing structures which take it farther and farther from the common, historical patterns.

Much in the summer will depend on the opening of the increased market capacity (as two major new plants swing open) and the industry reacts to it.

There is a fear that President Trump’s public face to Mexico and China may result in lower export sales for the coming year.

The current mindset is to create, lean, bi-lateral trade agreements that focus on a win-win for the broadest group of constituents in each country.

2017 is setting up to be a very surprising and interesting time in the global pork industry. Everywhere around the globe where pork production is at a comparative advantage, expansion is taking place. In the US, President-elect Trump brings a completely new model of leadership…

The author analyzes the loss-making situation that is engulfing the US pig industry and links its future development to globalisation, which progress seems to be slowing down...

Don’t be surprised over the next decade if another one or two of the large US pork production/processing chains changes hands or gains significant new partners from another country.

The success of the Brexit movement to force the exit of UK from the European Union demonstrates the limits of globalism, which for many has become a kind of euphoric synonym for innovation, increased efficiency and low cost

In the long term, Chinese producers will have to gain access to their own processors in order to break the information barrier which prevents precision investment in the production process.

The bearish indicators still hang heavy over the industry and some have actually increased.

Will we see the predicted 2% increase in production this year that USDA is forecasting?

The headwinds to a 30% rise in carcass prices expected into the summer include a relative abundance of pork and all other meats coupled with much lower retail prices emerging in the meat case, ...