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Hog industry expanding much faster than cattle

 

Over the last several years, the U.S. livestock industry has taken big hits from disease and weather issues, reducing the available amount of cattle and hogs.

University of Missouri Professor of Agricultural Economics Ron Plain tells Brownfield the hog industry is experiencing expansion at a much faster rate than the cattle industry, “My estimate is we’ll slaughter over 114 million head of hogs this year, that’s up 7% compared to last year. The cattle slaughter numbers though are probably going to be down a little bit this year. It just takes the cattle industry longer to expand than it does the hog industry.”

Plain says there’s very little reason to expect any price relief for beef at the grocery store, but pork is plentiful and should stay that way through the end of the year.

The USDA says that on June 1st, 2015, the U.S. hog herd was 9% larger than on June 1st, 2014.