They are everywhere you look. Reports of rising costs and shrinking salaries. Making ends meet becomes tougher for families each year. Education costs go up. Gas prices skyrocket. Can things get any worse? Well, next year many will have to make some difficult budget decisions concerning another favorite commodity that they don’t know what they’d do without. Bacon.
We’ve all hear rumors of the Aporkalypse. The drought of 2012 caused farmers to sell their livestock in record numbers because they couldn’t afford to feed them. Therefore, next year there won’t be enough piggies sent to market to meet demand. Experts now say, however, that’s simply not the case.
“Use of the word ‘shortage’ caused visions of (1970’s-style) gasoline lines in a lot of people’s heads, and that’s not the case,” Steve Meyer, president of Iowa-based Paragon Economics and a consultant to the National Pork Producers Council and National Pork Board, told the Associated Press. “If the definition of shortage is that you can’t find it on the shelves, then no, the concern is not valid. If the concern is higher cost for it, then yes.”
In essence, shoppers will find plenty of pork products at the butcher counter and on grocery shelves, but they may cost as much as 10 percent more than currently. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts pork production will only decrease by about 1.2 percent in 2013.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, however, feed costs account for about 60 percent of livestock farmers’ cost to raise a pig. The increased prices will reflect the increased cost of feed due to this year’s drought. The agency notes after the months-long drought in the Corn Belt, it now expects grain production to equal just 10.8 billion bushels—the lowest harvest since 2006
“We have obviously had a major drought this year,” Anderson told the Farm Bureau. “ We’ve been talking about it for two or three months now. It has reduced the size of the corn crop considerably and that’s led to a rapid increase in corn prices. Corn is the primary livestock feed in this country, so that does affect cost of production for everyone who produces livestock and dairy products, whether we’re talking about pork or eggs or milk, those are the kind of products that are affected by this.”
In fact, the USDA reports the current U.S. hog inventory is more than it was one year ago, about 67.5 million head. A total of 2,345 hogs were slaughtered the week of Sept. 28, down 2.3 percent from the prior week, but an increase of 4.1 percent from the same week in 2011. Re-enforcing reports of livestock liquidation, total slaughter has been up 5.3 percent from 2011 during the past seven weeks.
The agency forecasts, however, that supplies will decrease slightly next year as breeding stock and birthing decrease because of high feed costs.
“I think we’re going to (still) see pretty substantial liquidations,” Meyer told the AP, guessing that 3 percent of the nation’s breeding pigs could be sent to slaughter by next March. “And by my estimation, that’s a big move.”
