By RON PLAIN
Hog Outlook 

For several weeks there has been a slowdown in activity at West Coast seaports because of a dispute between the Pacific Maritime Assoc. and the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union. This is causing serious problems for U.S. meat exporters and has the potential to become a crisis. Containers of meat destined for export are piling up and growing old at West Coast docks. Roughly 22 percent of U.S. pork production, 10 percent of beef and 20 percent of chicken are exported each month, with most going out from the West Coast. The potential loss in export value is huge and is a big threat to farm prices.

Last week saw big price declines in both hog and cattle futures. The February lean hog futures contract closed Friday, Aug. 23, at $69.30 per cwt., down $5.20 for the week. April hog futures ended last week at $70.65 per cwt., down $7.02 from the week before. May hogs lost $6.60 last week to close at $76.77 per cwt. The June contract ended the week at $80.20 per cwt.

There were 497 million pounds of pork in cold storage at the end of December. That was up 2.3 percent from the month before, but down 10.3 percent compared to a year earlier. Frozen stocks of beef and chicken were up 11 percent and 2 percent respectively. Turkey stocks were down 19 percent.

Commercial hog slaughter during 2014 totaled 106.8783 million head, down 4.6 percent compared to the year before and the smallest slaughter since 2006.

The morning pork cutout value Friday, Jan. 23, was $83.71 per cwt. FOB the plants, down 37 cents from the week before and down $2.82 from a year ago. Ham and belly prices were higher last week. Loin prices were lower.

There were no USDA barrow and gilt carcass prices reported for the morning Jan. 23 because of confidentially concerns associated with low sales volume. The national average plant delivered carcass price for Jan. 22 was $68.35 per cwt. Regional carcass prices on Jan. 22 averaged $67.94 per cwt. in the Eastern Corn Belt and $69.10 per cwt. in both the Western Corn Belt and Iowa-Minnesota. For the week, carcass prices were down about $2 per cwt.

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