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Elusive profits for pork producers in 2023

Pork producers attending the World Pork Expo are saying it’s difficult to be profitable this year.

National Pork Producers Council president Scott Hays raises pigs near Monroe City, Missouri and says input costs are eating into margins.

“And we’ve had these input costs for two or three years now, but the last couple years we had pig prices that still made it profitable to raise pigs. And we just don’t have that now.”

Southwest Minnesota pork producer Terry Wolters tells Brownfield a short crop in his area a year ago has pressured corn prices.

“That’s nearly 70 percent of our total input costs is feed, so that’s a lot of added pressure. We’ve got pressure from energy, fuel, transportation.”

Bill Luckey operates a wean-to-finish operation in east-central Nebraska.

“There have been some challenges that have been out of our control. We’ve gone through some of these challenges before, this may be a little bit different. But we’ll get through it, it’s going to be tough.”