Each year at their outlook forum, the U.S. Department of Agriculture takes a long term look at U.S. agriculture.

Last month, they forecast this year’s commercial pork production at 22.56 billion pounds. That is slightly more than last year, but less than in 2009. USDA expects pork production in both 2012 and 2013 to be lower than this year. They predicted U.S. pork production would remain below the 2008 record of 23.347 billion pounds through 2015.

USDA is forecasting that U.S. pork exports will increase each year with 2020 export tonnage up 28 percent from 2010. U.S. pork imports are also expected to increase annually with 2020 imports up 27 percent compared to last year. If they are right on these numbers, net pork exports will be 28 percent higher in 2020 than in 2010.

We exported 19 percent of U.S. production last year. By 2020 USDA expects pork exports to equal 22 percent of production. Last year, pork imports equaled 4 percent of U.S. production. USDA expects imports to hold steady at 4 percent of production through 2020.

USDA predicted hog prices will be higher this year and then again in 2012 and 2013. Unfortunately, they are also predicting corn prices will average above $4 per bushel for each of the next 10 years leaving hog producers near a breakeven situation in most years.

USDA’s Thursday afternoon calculated pork cutout value was $90.39 per cwt., down $1.28 from the previous Thursday. Loins and butts were lower this week. Hams and bellies were higher.

Hog prices ended the week steady to lower than the week before. The national weighted average carcass price for negotiated hogs Friday morning was $79.41 per cwt., down $1.02 from the previous Friday. This morning western Corn Belt carcass prices averaged $76.57 per cwt. and Iowa-Minnesota averaged $76.60 per cwt.

On Friday, March 4, the eastern Corn Belt averaged $79.98 per cwt. The top live hog price Friday at Zumbrota, Minn. was $56 per cwt. Both Sioux Falls and Peoria’s top were $57 per cwt. The interior Missouri live top Friday was $58 per cwt., unchanged from the previous Friday.

The average carcass weight of barrows and gilts slaughtered the week ending Feb. 19 was 205 pounds, down 1 pound from the previous week, but 4 pounds heavier than a year ago. Iowa-Minnesota live weights for barrows and gilts last week averaged 274.2 pounds, up 1.1 pounds from the week before and up 5.0 pounds compared to a year earlier. Weights have been above year ago for the last 23 weeks.

Hog slaughter totaled 2.14 million head this week, up 1.5 percent from the week before, but down 1 percent compared to the same week last year.
The April lean hog futures contract ended the week at $88.47 per cwt., down $1.73 from the previous Friday. The May contract ended the week at $98.22 per cwt. June hogs settled at $101.05.

March corn futures closed out the week at $7.21 per bushel, up 9 cents from the week before. The May corn contract settled at $7.28 per bushel.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Ron Plain may write to him in care of this publication.