As of June 16, 64% of corn acres were rated in good or excellent condition. That is up 1 percentage point from the week before and up 1 point from a year ago.
The national average negotiated carcass price for direct delivered hogs on the morning report today was $98.05/cwt, down $2.81 from last Friday. On the morning report today, Eastern corn belt hogs averaged $98.30/cwt. Neither the western corn belt nor Iowa Minnesota had enough sales early today for a morning price quote. Peoria had a top live price this morning of $66/cwt. Zumbrota, MN topped at $69/cwt. The top for interior Missouri live hogs Friday was $69.75/cwt, down $1.50 from the previous Friday.
Friday morning's pork cutout value based on mandatory price reporting was $107.71/cwt FOB plants, up $5.01 from the week before and up $11.61 from 3 weeks ago. This is the highest pork cutout price since mid August 2011. Both bellies and butts set new record highs this week. The average hog carcass price is 91.0% of the calculated pork cutout value.
Hog slaughter this week totaled 1.981 million head, up 1.6% from the week before and up 1.1% compared to the same week last year.
The average barrow and gilt live weight in Iowa-Minnesota last week was 275.0 pounds, unchanged from a week earlier, but up 2.9 pounds from a year ago.
Year-to-date hog slaughter is down 0.2% and pork production is down 0.8%.
The July lean hog futures contract closed at $99.75/cwt today, up $1.73 from the previous Friday. August hog futures ended the week 70 cents higher than last at $97.45/cwt. October hogs settled at $85.10/cwt and December ended the week at $82.30/cwt.
The strength in cutout and hog futures this week makes us optimistic for higher hog prices next week.
Corn futures ended the week up slightly from the previous Friday; soybean futures ended the week 20 cents or so lower than at the start.