Page 20 of articles about costs

The FAO Food Price Index has dropped for the first time after eight months of continuous price spikes. The Index averaged 230 points in March 2011, down 2.9 percent from its peak in February, but still 37 percent above March of last year.

International prices of most agricultural commodities have increased in recent months, some sharply. The FAO Food Price index has gained 34 points since the previous Food Outlook report in June, averaging 197 points in October, only 16 points short from its peak in June 2008. The upward movements of prices were connected with several factors, the most important of which were a worsening of the outlook for crops in key producing countries, which is likely to require large draw downs of stocks and result in tighter global supply and demand balances in 2010/11.

Despite improvements in daily liveweight gain and pigs finished per sow, Britain still lags behind its European competition in the production stakes. The latest figures from the BPEX publication on international cost of production show Britain produced 1643kg pig meat per sow in 2009 – the lowest of all the EU countries.

An analysis of how international pig production costs suffered from 2008 record feed grain prices has been produced by InterPig.

The Agriculture and Food Council’s recently published prognosis on pig meat prices and earnings in pig production indicates stability for the rest of current year and for next year as well. The significant fluctuations, which we have seen during the last six months, will ease off. The current expectations are stable compared to the announcement as of March 2009.