IARN — Iowa State University Extension and Outreach livestock economist Lee Schulz anticipates increased livestock production costs this year.
“My estimates of hog production costs suggest we have seen an increase of 12-dollars per hundredweight or 25-dollars per head in 2021 compared to 2020,” says Schulz. “This sets the stage for a dynamic year ahead and one that marketing is going to play a critical role in.”
Schulz recently moderated a panel discussion, where speakers presented new marketing tools and resources available to pig farmers, at the 2021 Iowa Pork Congress.
Pat Von Tersch, of Professional Ag Marketing, participated in the educational session: “New Marketing Tools for Pork Producers.” Von Tersch spoke to a marketing tool, known as Livestock Risk Protection (LRP).
“This program has been around for quite some time,” Von Tersch says. “Last summer the federal government, through a couple of appropriations, started to subsidize a bigger percentage of these insurance risk programs that are available to us.”
Von Tersch reveiws changes made to this risk management tool, which he says “acts similarly to crop insurance, at least from the perspective of subsidies.”
“You now have 10 different choices on length of coverage. They recently increased the endorsement length to 52 weeks,” Von Tersch says. “Another update (is) you can now do 40,000 head per policy. That was 20,000. They have also modified the livestock ownership requirement to 60 days instead of 30.”
Von Tersch also mentions Livestock Gross Margin (LGM). However, producers cannot enroll in both programs; it’s either one or the other.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network
