Commentary: September 2006 USDA Hogs and Pigs Report

Mike Brumm

The USDA September 1, 2006 Hogs and Pigs report released on September 29 documented the continued slow but steady growth in the US industry. Of interest to many industry observers is the relative location for this growth.

Looking first at the breeding herd, growth (relative to September 2005 inventory) occurred in all states east of the Mississipi River except for North Carolina where a statewide moratorium has created an artificial cap on the structure of the industry. West of the Mississippi river, growth occurred in Missouri (up 4%), Kansas (up 6%) and South Dakota (up 11%).

For the 'Kept for Market' category, once again growth in all states east of the Mississippi except N. Carolina. As detailed in the following charts, the cap on growth, along with improved productivity in the breeding herd is resulting in increasing numbers of N. Carolina born pigs being transported out-of-state (mostly to Midwestern locations) for growth to slaughter.

The relatively large increase in inventory in Kansas is most likely due to increased investments in production facilities by integrated systems such as Seaboard Foods in southwestern Kansas.

Included in the following charts are data regarding importation of both feeder pigs and slaughter pigs from Canada. The sharp drop in imports of both slaughter and feeder pigs for the last week of data recorded for 2006 for the week ending September 23, 2006 is due to a data error noted by the USDA in their last reporting of this data. It is expected that a correction will be issued in the near future.

Based on the feeder pig imports to date, it appears that US producers will import a total of 5.8+ million feeder pigs in 2006, easily surpassing the record 5.55 million feeder pigs imported in 2004. Iowa producers remain the dominant buyer of these pigs.

Further Reading

To view the Microsoft Word version of this report, including all the graphs, Click Here (.doc file)

To read the September 2006 Quarterly Pigs and Hogs report, click here

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