> Listeners to last week's show know we raise a few hogs each year on the
> Old Solar Farm. As our two pigs were nearing full size, the national
> market price for a full-grown hog was just $16 per hundred pounds.
> That's 16 cents a pound-- about the lowest price ever (after adjustment
> for inflation). One of our beautiful, 250-pound Duroc hogs, containing a
> year's supply of pork for two or more families, is worth only about $40
> on the open market. At that price, farmers lose between $50 and $75 on
> each pig they raise. Compare $40 for a whole hog to the cost of a
> supermarket ham or a breakfast muffin with sausage! The current price of
> the pig just doesn't make any sense.
Considering the continual expansion of Seaboard and other factory hog farms
across the U.S., the price of the pig makes perfect sense. It's the prices of
the supermarket ham and the breakfast muffin that are senseless, since the pig
is an input for producing both.
I get your point, your logic is just backwards.
Mark
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J. Mark Leonard Department of Agricultural Economics
Senior Research Specialist Oklahoma State University
(405)744-9988 522 Agricultural Hall
leonajm@okstate.edu Stillwater, OK 74078-6033