Ron Plain Hog Outlook: U.S. Pork Imports Lower.

Ron Plain and Scott Brown
Ag Economics, MU
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On Monday the World Trade Organization announced that Canada and Mexico will be allowed to impose tariffs equaling roughly $1 billion on U.S. products they import because our Country of Origin Labeling law has been ruled to be in violation of our international trade agreements. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal the troublesome COOL provisions, but the Senate has yet to act.

U.S. pork imports were down 8.0% in October and pork exports were up 10.9% compared to 12 months earlier. Mexico, Hong Kong, Australia, and Taiwan all had large increases in purchases of U.S. pork. Less pork from Canada was the reason for the drop in pork imports.

Imports equaled 4.6% of October pork production while exports equaled 18.9% of production. During the first ten months of 2015, pork exports were down 0.5% and imports were up 11.5% compared to January-October 2014.

Through October, live hog imports were up 14.4%.

The national negotiated barrow and gilt price on the morning report today was $49.93/cwt, down $1.63 from last Friday morning. The western corn belt averaged $50.22/cwt this morning, down $1.73 for the week. There were no negotiated price quotes this morning for Iowa-Minnesota or for the eastern corn belt.

Peoria had a top live price today of $28/cwt, down $2 from last Friday. The top price today for interior Missouri live hogs was $34.50/cwt, unchanged from the previous Friday.

This morning's pork cutout value was $74.88/cwt FOB the plants. That is up $1.65 from the week before with butts and hams higher, and loins and bellies lower. This morning's national negotiated hog price was only 66.7% of the cutout value.

This week's hog slaughter totaled 2.2426 million head, up 0.1% from last week and up 7.3% from the same week last year.

USDA says 372,849 hogs were slaughtered the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That is the largest Saturday slaughter ever.

The average live slaughter weight of barrows and gilts in Iowa-Minnesota last week was 284.4 pounds, up 0.5 pound from a week earlier, but down 1.0 pound from a year ago.

The December lean hog futures contract settled today at $56.00/cwt, down $1.05 for the week. February hog futures ended the week at $60.55/cwt, up $1.45 from the week before. April hogs gained $1.47 cents this week to close at $64.70/cwt.

The December corn futures contracted settled at $3.73 per bushel today. That is down 3.25 cents from last Friday.

Source: AGEBB