By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — The USDA’s latest Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report yielded great news for U.S. hog farmers, with a greater profit potential, no signs of production cutbacks and Iowa still remaining the nation’s leading pork-producing state.

“The livestock industry, especially the pork sector, got some good news,” said James Mintert, a Kansas State University Extension livestock marketing specialist, who was one of three panelists at a news teleconference for national farm reporters, funded and sponsored by the Pork Checkoff in Des Moines, Iowa.

“The stage is set for continued profits this spring, and pork producers should stay in the black through at least the third quarter of this year,” he said of the report, released on March 30, which indicated that U.S. hog farmers had netted 38 profitable months.

According to the first quarterly report of the year, the U.S. inventory of all hogs and pigs on March 1, 2007, was 61.1 million head, which was up 1 percent from March 1, 2006, but down 2 percent from Dec. 1, 2006. What’s more, the breeding inventory, at 6.08 million head, which was up 1 percent from last year, but down slightly from the previous quarter.

“We’ll likely see fairly steady prices this year, since there’s nothing tremendously negative in the latest Hogs and Pigs Report to suggest otherwise,” said Dr. Darrel Mark, a University of Nebraska Extension livestock marketing specialist.

The pork industry also had shown no signs of substantial production cutbacks in the near future, based on data from the report.

For example, market hog inventory, at 55.0 million head, was up 1 percent from last year, but down 2 percent from last quarter. In addition, the December 2006-February 2007 pig crop, at 26.1 million head, was up 2 percent from 2006 and up 3 percent from 2005.

Moreover, the average pigs saved per litter was 9.08 for the December 2006-February 2007 period, compared to 9.03 last year.
In fact, the current total is a record for the winter quarter, said Dan Vaught, a livestock analyst with A.G. Edwards in St. Louis.

The USDA also said U.S. hog producers intend to have 2.91 million sows farrow during the March-May 2007 quarter, down slightly from the actual farrowings, but up 1 percent from 2005; intended farrowings for June-August 2007, at 2.92 million sows, are virtually unchanged from both 2006 and 2005.

In addition, federally-inspected hog slaughter numbers for March 1-28, 2007, rose 3.7 percent from a year ago, Vaught added.

“This is a testament to steady pork demand from both domestic and international markets,” he said.

Vaught said U.S. pork industry modernization overall also “dictates running hog houses at capacity.”

“You don’t see a pull back,” he said. “On the smaller side of the industry, producers may be throwing in the towel. Unless buildings are worn out, they are likely to sell the buildings to someone else who will fill them.”

The USDA added that the total number of hogs under contract - owned by operations with over 5,000 head, but raised by contractees, accounted for 39 percent of the total U.S. hog inventory, unchanged from last year.

Although Iowa still leads the nation in hog production, as of March 1, the state’s pork producers had breeding herds totals of only 1.08 million, which was down 2 percent from last March.

On the same day, the USDA released its planting intentions survey, indicating that Iowa could be showing the most acreage in the nation since 1981, planting close to the record 14.4 million acres of corn they seeded 26 years ago.

Iowa farmers are expected to plant 15 percent more corn this year, which would break the 1981 record, said Don Roose, president of U.S. Commodities Inc., an investment and analysis firm based in West Des Moines.

In 2006, Iowa farmers planted 12.6 million acres to corn.