Very O.T. (hog prices) (it is the weekend ...) There is something going on recently with hog prices which I think is indicative of the current huge deflationary forces.
Hog prices are down to ridiculously low levels. (And, butter prices have already come down very quickly from their brief "everyone is buying expensive ice cream" induced rally).
November 21, 1998
Hog Farmers Want Federal Help
Filed at 1:57 a.m. EST
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Struggling from a nationwide glut and record low
prices, the nation's pork producers have asked President Clinton to head off
what they fear will be financial failure for thousands of hog farmers.
Donna Reifschneider, president of the National Pork Producers Council,
warned that ''if this dangerous situation is not reversed quickly, it will result in
the failure of tens of thousands of pork producers and a massive restructuring
of pork production in the United States.''
In a letter to President Clinton, she asked that the government buy more pork
and that hog farmers be made eligible for emergency disaster loans. She also
asked that Clinton establish an interagency task force to help hog farmers.
The industry also asked the administration to request that Canada send fewer
hogs to the United States for slaughter. And it asked that federally imposed
environmental restrictions on a hog processing plant near Tar Heel, N.C., be
eased so more hogs can be accepted. The Environmental Protection Agency
has restricted the Carolina Food Processors Plant to processing no more than
144,000 hogs a week because of concern about pollution.
''We believe the economic crisis facing America's pork producers must be
viewed as a national emergency, warranting immediate intervention by the
U.S. government,'' Reifschneider argued in the letter sent to the White House
on Friday.
The request for federal assistance comes at a time when pork producers are
getting record low prices for their hogs. A nationwide glut has allowed
slaughterhouses -- flush with supplies and running at record capacity -- to
lower their bids.
The prices farmers got for hogs fell 39 percent in the 12-month period ending
Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and have fallen
further since. As of Thursday, farmers were getting $19 per hundredweight
compared to $46.50 a year ago.
Iowa is the nation's largest hog state, with about 18,000 producers, followed
by North Carolina, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma
and Ohio.
Most pork producers are not eligible for assistance under the emergency farm
package passed by Congress last month. That $6 billion deal was aimed
mainly at grain producers and farmers hit by natural disasters and crop
disease.
Some farmers have also complained that retailers have benefited from the low
price problem, pointing out that prices have declined only 1.5 percent at the
retail level.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company |
