Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1286

A Livestock Market Analyst with Manitoba's Agriculture Department predicts live hog prices will stick to their normal patterns for the rest of this year.

Provincial Market Analysis and Statistics Branch Manager Janet Honey says, in the two weeks after the US closed the border to Canadian ruminants, the wholesale and retail price of US beef reached record highs allowing higher cattle prices.

She says the cutout price of pork also increased but, because that's normal at this time of year, it's difficult to be sure if that increase was due to the high beef price or if it was a normal seasonal increase.

"Last week and maybe part of the week before that it looked as if US cattle producers were expecting the border to open so they were marketing their animals in ever increasing numbers. There was a decline in the futures price of cattle and that did have a slight dampening effect on wholesale pork prices.

Whether that will continue or not, I don't know.

There's been absolutely no indication when the border will open so I believe that the pork price will probably just follow its normal trend without being significantly impacted by the beef price.

It looks as if hog prices across North America could start to level off and decrease as we move go from August down into the fall.

Normally prices are lowest in the mid-fall and then they increase toward the end of the year. If prices follow a normal trend, that's what's going to happen but prices don't always do what they're supposed to do".

Honey says hog prices have increased, particularly in the last three to four weeks, but they're still not as high as five year average and well below 2001.

However, she says, they are above 2002 returning many producers to profitability.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.