Business

  Supply Driven Pork and Beef Markets Hold Promise– By all expectations, 2012 is shaping up to be a very good year for U.S. pork producers, following a two-year recovery period. Many are still rebuilding. Even with historically high cost of production, we seem to be in a demand market scenario, which is giving producers an opportunity to lock in some very good returns for the remainder of the year....More

A recent press release announced that the ethanol industry had overtaken livestock as the largest consumer of the nation’s corn supply. The release, citing data from North American Risk Management Services, Inc., explained that ethanol production had nearly quadrupled between 2005 and 2011, now gobbling up 5.02 billion bushels, more than 40% of last year’s harvest. Corn use for livestock and poultry feed fell 22% during that period and now accounts for about 4.79 billion bushels of the 2011 crop....More

McDonald's Corporation issued a press release this week indicating it will require its U.S. pork suppliers to outline a plan to phase out the use of sow gestation stalls....More

In March of 2011, the outlook for U.S. pork exports was in question. Japan, the top customer for American pork, suffered a natural disaster of epic proportions – a devastating earthquake that spawned a killer tsunami and a nuclear meltdown...More