Dennis DiPietre

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, ...

When global supplies of pork are large, as they are now, the name of the game for major production areas is growing net exports.

The only prospect for growth in both the EU and the US is increasing net export sales. We are at an interesting cross-roads about which pork producing nation or group of nations will capture that opportunity.

US pork industry is enjoying the lowest feed costs in quite some time. A significant number of new hogs to be raised in the U.S. is expected. Will the production arrive ahead of the new slaughter capacity?

We can assure Pope Francis that neither of the two big regional trade agreements will result in “unfettered capitalism” but the one between the US and EU could result in the US having more than two kinds of cheese, (currently yellow and white)

COOL story can be summarized as “Be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it”.

Big news in US as Seaboard and Triumph Foods announce plans to build and operate a large-scale packing plant in Sioux City. One of the things which this move signals is the further coordination of the production sector with consumer demand.

Everyone in the United States is waiting for the return of the seasonal pattern and the prospect of prices breaking out of this extended period of flat-lining which has gone on for almost two months now.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ground hog of pork price forecasts saw a long shadow when it emerged in late February and the tiny bubble of hope that the already late-to-end seasonal lows of winter were over was put on hold.

Export markets may not be as robust as forecast by USDA due to very slow economic growth and actual recession in many countries. Add to that the massive value increase of the dollar versus its chief competitive currencies as the cost of oil plummeted…

USA breeding herd expansion seems inevitable.

Just like the emergent molten lava from Mount Kilauea, so an historical metric of the US hog industry, having lay dormant for many years, is creeping ever so slowly over its profit destroying "trigger" level. That metric is the hog corn ratio.

All the ingredients required for a pig industry expansion: Oxygen (PEDv becoming manageable) + fuel (high profits and lower feed ingredient prices ahead) + a spark (intentions to farrow 3-4 % more sows).

It' is not as simple as the larger pigs have better survivability...

We hear a lot of talk about optimizing profitability in grow-finish through reducing standard deviation of marketed weights and aiming that tighter weight group at the profit optimal average weight at the time of marketing. It’s a bit like playing darts, you want the darts to be in tight group but it is also necessary to be near the bull’s eye on the target.

Current pig market weights are through the roof and at all-time highs for the modern period of meat pig production. We should be noticing a big decline shortly but…