Marketing

Publish Date: November 12, 2014

Marketing pigs is an important aspect to profitable swine production. Pork processors have developed marketing grids that value carcasses. These grids are specific to each pork processor with premiums based on carcass weight and leanness. Although premiums depend on the pork processor, the overall trend is for processors placing more importance on carcass weight and importance on percent lean. Pigs need to be sold at an optimum weight in order to maximize profit.

Publish Date: December 14, 2012

This publication is a follow-up to the Pig Information Gateway publication “Evaluating the Contract Finishing Opportunity Part 1 - Is Contract Swine Production Right for You?”, which mainly examines non-economic issues related to the decision to grow hogs under production contract. This article is intended to assist with actually evaluating economic and legal aspects of the document that establishes a relationship with a contractor.

Publish Date: December 14, 2012

Increasing numbers of farmers, aspiring farmers and rural landowners are considering a contract hog finishing enterprise as a way to enter agriculture or expand or diversify their current operation. This publication is in response to questions and issues related to this decision and is intended to help with the decision process. Every person, opportunity and situation is different in one way or the other, and the following discussion is more about helping you ask the right questions than giving generalized answers. Even for farmers with substantial operations the decision to enter contract production is one of the biggest decisions they will ever make. It involves a set of decisions related to farm business strategy, investment analysis and personal/family issues. Like any business venture, it is best to go in with “both eyes open” in order to be satisfied in the long run. The best possible situation for contracting firms and growers is that expectations and reality are in line over the life of the contract and beyond.

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

The use of futures to establish hedges for inputs and pork sales can be a very valuable tool for a producer to use to stay competitive in today’s swine industry. The use of futures and options contracts will allow producers to establish input purchases and pork sales well ahead of when actual physical products are used or sold.

Publish Date: April 4, 2012

The structure of the pork industry changed dramatically during the 1990s and promises to continue to change in the years ahead. By structural change, we refer to the number and size of operations, who owns them, and how they relate to other firms in the pork chain. Change provides both challenges and opportunities to those individuals who make their living from the industry. Trying to cope with rapid change can quickly become a test of survival. Most of the data for this fact sheet come from USDA publications and industry surveys conducted by the University of Missouri and Iowa State University.

Publish Date: 20060606

Three firms extended bids for IBP, Inc., the largest beefpacking and second largest porkpacking firm in the U.S., in the last half of 2000. Bidders included: (1) Rawhide Holdings Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) Merchant Banking Partners III, L.P.; (2) Smithfield Foods, Inc.; and (3) Tyson Foods, Inc. IBP announced…

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1997 Swine Research Report. The amount of selection pressure placed on a performance trait relative to other traits is determined by its economic value relative to the other traits. The economic value of carcass leanness should be based upon current and anticipated future carcass merit programs. In the mid 1980s, pork processors were…

Publish Date: 20060918

Purdue University 1997 Swine Research Report. Sometime in the early part of the next century, the U.S. pork production industry will look back at 1995 and remember it as a watershed year. So will many other nations. This was the first year since 1952 that the U.S. pork industry became, once again, a net exporter…

Publish Date: 20060606

The reports required by the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act of 1999 (LMRA) are designed to capture a wide array of information about the market for hogs in the United States. They differ markedly from the reports issued by USDAAMS under the voluntary price reporting system and their sheer breadth is rather daunting to potential users.…

Publish Date: 20060606

In the future, agriculture and food production from corn and soybean fields to dairy farms and dairies, to cattle ranches and feedlots, to hog operations, to poultry complexes, to packers and processors will be consolidated into huge, integrated production systems. It will consolidate and integrate so that agriculture itself and independent, individual producers themselves can…