Special Report

Analyst says pork industry is positioned well

A livestock market analyst says all signs point to a good year for pork producers.

Steve Meyer, with EMI Analytics says if pork producers have managed their risk well – it could be another year of positive margins. “If you take the average price of all the hogs that are sold across the different methods and put that across our cost model – we’ve got almost $20 per head this year,” he says. 

He tells Brownfield the pork industry is positioned to grow.  “The packing plants that are coming on are going to provide us some opportunities,” he says.  “I think that’s a positive.  I think we have to be careful about irrational exuberance across 2018 and 2019 because we could certainly produce ourselves into a bad situation if we’re not careful.”

But, Meyer says he doesn’t anticipate pressure on slaughter capacity like the pork industry saw in the fourth quarter of 2016.  “There are those kind of ‘black swan’ events that are out there that could happen,” he says.  “Barring that though – I think we’ll be reasonably tight this fall, but nothing like last fall.”

AUDIO: Steve Meyer, EMI Analytics

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