USDA Releases Surprising Hog and Pig Report

The USDA released their latest Hogs and Pigs report last week and it showed a four percent increase over last year, and a new record high for 2016.

Purdue Economist Chris Hurt said even with record totals, the slaughter numbers can keep packing capacity from overflowing.

“I think that’s one of the important things that we’re going to be looking at, bringing on more processing capacity in the second half of 2017.”

The total number of hogs was up to 65.4 million head and the breeding inventory is up 1.5 percent from last year.

Sterling Market President John Nalivka said it’s the same story throughout livestock.

“It’s not just pork that we’re producing more of, it’s total meat. We’re not only expanding the hog herds, we’ve expanded the beef herd pretty aggressively and with these lower feed costs we’re certainly expanding our poultry production.”

Experts are expecting the hog markets to be under pressure this week with the release of the USDA report.