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Pig farming is in an economic downturn that predates the nation's current one. H1N1 is just piling on.

"I wish I had better news for you," Don Butler, president of the National Pork Producers Council, said Wednesday as the three-day event opened. His news was that over the next six months, enough farmers would go out of business to shrink the sow herd -- the swine industry's four-legged engine -- by about 5 percent.

The pork industry has had six quarters in which production costs were greater than market prices. Business was looking up this spring until the new flu strain emerged in late April. Now, producers can expect to lose $11.16 on every hundred pounds of pig they sell, nearly the mirror image of the $11.36 profit they made in 2006, said Neil Dierks, another official of the council.

"We can't lock in a profit until well into next year, and the problem is getting from here to there," Dierks said.

Pig farmers can't just hold on to their animals and wait until the price improves. The animals get too big. In the mechanized world of pork production, animals go to slaughter when they are about 270 pounds. Above 320 pounds, butchering becomes a custom job -- with the carcass sold at a commensurate discount. Feed the animals an extra year, and many will be pushing a half a ton and loaded with fat -- not the pig of choice for contemporary American diets.

 Commodities  |  Livestock  | Comments (1)
Eric J Lohry,  Des Moines, IA   June 5th, 2009 04:29:12 PM

GENEVA (AP)   The World Health Organization announced Thursday it will would stop using the term "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs. The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency had expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to ban pork products and order the slaughter of pigs.

"Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," Thompson said

The WHO stated that "there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs."


 International Trade  |  Livestock  | Comments (1)
Eric J Lohry,  Sioux City Office   April 30th, 2009 10:01:00 PM

... at the Agriculture Department, Secretary Tom Vilsack pushed a change, saying the American hog industry is sound; there are no known sick U.S. pigs. "We have no indication that any swine from the United States has been infected," Vilsack said. "We are open for business. We believe that there is no reason to stop or ban pork or pork products from the United States." Added U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk: "We want to make sure that a handful of our trading partners don't take advantage of this legitimate concern over public health and engage in behavior that could also damage the world's economy." Groups representing the pork industry — including the National Pork Producers Council, the National Pork Board and the American Meat Institute — have all been in talks with the Agriculture Department asking officials to discourage the name "swine flu" and to reassure the public that pork is safe.

 International Trade  |  Livestock  | Comments (0)
Eric J Lohry,  Sioux City Office   April 30th, 2009 10:46:18 AM