DES MOINES, Iowa — The USDA’s latest hog numbers are showing U.S. pork producers have been steadily rebounding from the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) that devastated the nation’s industry, according to farm market analysts, with the total U.S. inventory up 9 percent from June 2014.
"We are back on the long-term trend rates of growth pre-PEDv in terms of pigs per litter," said Jim Robb, director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center in Lakewood, Colo. "Obviously that’s an area of uncertainty as we look ahead, but we are clearly back on year-to-year growth rates that are very much in line with historical patterns."
Robb joined John Nalivka, president of Sterling Marketing, Inc. in Vale, Ore., and David Miller, director of research and commodity services at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation in West Des Moines, in a June 26 teleconference analyzing the USDA’s June 1 quarterly Hogs and Pigs report.
Nalivka agreed with Robb’s assessment of the recovery rate from PEDv losses. "Production efficiency is back on track" he said. "It’s as if you took 2014 out of the data."
Sponsored by the National Pork Board and the pork checkoff in Des Moines, the report said as of June 1, there were 66.9 million hogs and pigs on farms, up 9 percent from June 2014 and up slightly from March 1, 2015. Of total inventory, the report noted 61 million were market hogs and the remaining 5.93 million were kept for breeding purposes.
Between March-May, the report said 29.6 million pigs were weaned on farms, an 8 percent increase from a year earlier, with hog farmers weaning a record high average of 10.37 pigs per litter during the second quarter.
Moreover, the report said U.S. pork producers intend to have 2.91 million sows farrow between June-August and 2.87 million sows are expected to farrow from September-November of this year – numbers which came as a big surprise to the analysts.
But Nalivka questioned the summer farrowing intentions being down 3 percent from a year ago because he thought that number would be even. "My reasoning behind that is producers have been in pretty good shape since the beginning of May, making anywhere from $20 to $30 per head," he explained, "and that’s a pretty long run of profitability, even with hog prices down from last year."
Miller added that Iowa, Indiana and Illinois, which are all major breeding states, were flat from 2014. But he said these bigger corn-producing states’ numbers could have been the result of higher ethanol production, which also could have made it more expensive to expand their respective herds than in the other states.
"The real farrowing growth is outside the Corn Belt," he said.
Robb said, "We do not see the farrowing intentions aligning particularly well with the economic conditions of the industry nor with the breeding herd."
The report also said nearly every state had hog finishing growth, especially in hogs 50 pounds; however, heavier weight market hogs were even larger, with Iowa showing the largest finishing growth, with 600,000 more hogs on feed weighing 180 pounds and more.
"That’s probably not so much a difference in what’s happening this year as it is a difference in what happened to that similar weight group last year due to PEDv," Miller said. "Iowa was definitely feeling the effect of PEDv in that heavy weight group in the June Hogs and Pigs report a year ago."
As the nation’s top hog producer, Iowa’s total inventory hit 21 million head, up 2 percent from March and 10 percent from last June’s 19.1 million head. Minnesota and North Carolina had the second and third largest inventories, with 8.05 million and 8 million respectively.
In Indiana, the state’s total hog and pig inventory on June 1 was estimated at 3.6 million head, up 100,000 from a year ago, the report said. In Illinois, the state’s inventory of all hogs and pigs on June 1 was 4.6 million head, down 2 percent from March 1 but up 7 percent from last year.
In addition, Michigan’s total hog and pig inventory on June 1 was estimated at 1.1 million head, up 110,000 from a year ago. In Ohio, hog and pig inventory on June 1 was estimated at 2.37 million head, up 400,000 from a year ago. (Kentucky and Tennessee hog numbers weren’t included in this report.)
The USDA surveyed more than 8,100 hog farmers across the nation during the first part of June "to obtain an accurate measurement of the U.S. swine industry," the report said. To find the full report, visit www.nass.usda.gov
