Dr. Steve Meyer with Partners for Production Agriculture says that as of March 1st, there were 72.2 million hogs and pigs on U.S. farms, down two percent from March 2021 and down three percent from December 2021. He says the data shows there weren’t as many hogs out there as they had expected.

“First, 180 and over down 3.8 percent, our slaughter since March 1 has been down 4.4 percent. That’s close enough that it doesn’t call into question the inventory. Breeding herd down two percent, a bit of a surprise I’m kind of, you know, we went took breeding herd down 27,000 hits since December.”

Meyer talks about how producers are still profitable, even though the report came as a surprise to the industry in regard to the breeding herd.

“So that says, and sow slaughter hasn’t been that high, so that says that we’ve lost, probably death loss is up and gilt retention is down, which is a surprise, I mean we’re looking at very profitable times even though costs are up, we still had profits.”

Meyer explains demand model adjustments have turned positive.

“That means, you know, these $1.24 futures doe the summer might be bid up. Actually, I think they’ll go up today. I don’t know how far they’ll carry them, but certainly a positive and, and it means you know that especially if we can get any handle on costs, this is going to be a great year for producers.”

Iowa hog producers accounted for the largest inventory among the states at 23.0 million head, and Minnesota had the second-largest inventory at 8.60 million head.