"The industry is just not structured to modify production in response to reduced demand. The industry is basically structured to go broke. It will produce hogs until it runs out of money." - CommStock Investments Inc. in Royal, Iowa.

30 US cents to 32 US cents a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (for November 2009)

Farmers are losing $US30 to $US35 on every pig they sell this month and may not make money until May, Grimes said. Producers have been unprofitable for 20 of the 22 months through July, and more than 5000 of them may need to exit the business, he said. Only then would the breeding herd shrink by the 10 per cent needed to spark a turnaround, he said.

[the liquidated stock will be butchered and placed in freezers until the market moves up ... meaning heavy losses for producers (farmers) and great profits for marketers (Conagra etc.)]

Retail ham prices are down 2.5 per cent this year to $US2.37 a pound in July, while chicken breasts rose 1.1 per cent to $US3.32 a pound and beef steak sold for $US5.289 a pound, a decrease of 1.6 per cent, Labor Department data showed on August 14.

producers :: get ~$1
marketers :: get ~$7
exported :: ~2 Billion lbs.

Imports from the US fell 38 per cent in Russia this year and 73 per cent in China
Imports by China fell to 66,000 tons

Total US shipments sank 20 per cent through June from a year earlier to 1.985 billion pounds.

Jobs Lost

"The drain on equity is just phenomenal," Dierks said in an interview. "Some economists are estimating that we'll see a contraction of 5 to 10 million head of hogs. And for every million head we don't produce, that's about 1000 jobs that rural America loses."