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Economist says the hog industry faces even more pressure

A livestock economist says the hog industry could face some serious pressure in the last quarter of 2020. University of Missouri’s Scott Brown says there’s still a lot of hogs backed up in the supply chain from the COVID-related disruptions earlier this year.

Brown says it will likely get worse before it gets better.  “We know we’re going to run into some weeks here in the last quarter where we’re like not going to stay as current as we’d like to be,” he says. 

He tells Brownfield pork processors have worked hard to alleviate some of the pressure on the supply chain. But, the industry can’t afford another shutdown from the coronavirus pandemic.  “We just can’t handle that given the number of hogs we need to slaughter,” he says.  “If that were to happen, that for sure, to me, makes the start of 2021 not very enjoyable.  Because, again, we’ll have hogs backed up that we’ll need to deal with for a longer period of time.”

Brown says the recent jump in prices has provided producers with some risk management opportunities – and they should take advantage of it when they can.