"I said "oh, boy", this is going to be interesting. How many places are they hitting, right away I started thinking impacts, you know?" Chris Petersen, the President of the Iowa Farmers Union said.

Typically hog producers see a price dip around the holidays, but the 12 cents per pound dip this year is nowhere near normal.

"You always have holiday pressures but this is way beyond that," Petersen said. And it's all because of simple supply and demand.

Last week, pork processing plants in our region lost hundreds of workers when federal agents arrested illegal immigrant workers. Now, those pork plants don't have the workers to process the hogs. So demand for butcher hogs is down.

Source: KIMT