Canadian hog numbers as of July 1, 2019 were little changed from a year earlier but still up almost 11% from a decade earlier.
A Statistics Canada report on Thursday pegged total nationwide hog numbers at the beginning of last month at 13.97 million head, down less than 0.1% from July 1, 2018. Canadian hog numbers have been inching lower for the past two years, after reaching a July 1 high of 14.2 million head in 2017. The most recent low was in 2010 at 12.52 million.
On the other hand, American producers have had the pedal to the metal on expansion. The U.S. inventory of all hogs and pigs on June 1 was 75.5 million head, the highest since estimates began in 1964. That was up 4% from June 1, 2018, and up 1% from March 1, 2019.
Canadian breeding stock (6 months and over) was estimated at 1.23 million head as of July 1, down 1.3% from last year, while the January-to-June 2019 pig crop was 14.1 million head, up 0.7% from the same period in 2018.
At 4.31 million head – little changed from 4.32 million a year earlier - Quebec had the largest hog inventory among the provinces, accounting for close to one-third of the Canadian total. The Ontario herd was pegged at 3.59 million head, up from 3.55 million on July 1, 2018, while the Manitoba herd came in at 3.4 million versus 3.41 million the previous year.
The Saskatchewan herd was down slightly at 970,000 head from 1.005 million a year earlier and Alberta was up slightly at 1.5 million from 1.495 million.
As of July 1, 7,740 farms reported hogs in Canada, a decrease of 1.3% from the same date a year earlier.
Canada exported 2.6 million hogs in the first half of 2019, down 4.1% from the same period in 2018. Lower imports of weaners from Canada may have been partly attributable to the large hog inventories in the U.S., StatsCan said, noting Canadian exports were 48.7% below their peak level, recorded on July 1, 2008.
On the other hand, hog slaughter increased in Canada in the first six months of 2019, up 0.2% from the same period in 2018 to 10.8 million head.
The January-to-June average price of Canadian slaughter hogs rose in 2019 compared with the same period in 2018. Strong pork demand, mainly from China, may have contributed to the price increase of Canadian slaughter hogs, StatsCan said. The January-to-June total value of pork exports to all countries increased 9.5%, while the total value of pork exports to China was up 92.8%.
Source : Syngenta