April 1, 2013

The USDA's quarterly hog report issued on Thursday (Mar 21) showed that Iowa was home to 20.3 million hogs on March 1, up 3% from a year ago but down from the 20.8 million last September.

Nationally, the US hog herd rose by 1% from last year to 65.9 million head.

Iowa maintained its lead as the nation's top hog-producing state, easily outdistancing No. two North Carolina with 8.9 million head. Minnesota is No. three in hog population with 7.6 million.

Hog futures were up US$0.53 per hundredweight to US$80.60 on Thursday (Mar 21) on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Hog prices have dropped by about US$10 per hundredweight since early February, mostly on worries about slack consumer demand.

"Demand hasn't been good, but you take 2% out of people's pay (the amount of increase in Social Security taxes) and demand will be hurt," said Steve Meyer of Paragon Economics, who works with pork producers.

Meyer said that the perennial problem of the hog industry, overproduction, is not on the horizon.

"We're not producing that much more," Meyer said. "The litter size of sows was down a bit due to the heat last year. What we need are lower corn prices. We need a big corn crop."