U.S. Pork Supply Surges During August

By CnAgri2012-09-25 19:27:09 Print

Pork inventories in the U.S. rose 31 percent to a record at the end of August from a year earlier, the USDA said, as farmers culled herds because of high feed costs, pushing meat production to a record.

Bloomberg News reports that warehouses held 580.8 million pounds of pork, up from 442.9 million on Aug. 31, 2011. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the figure was the highest ever for the date. Inventories rose 5.7 percent from the end of July.

U.S. commercial pork output in the first eight months of 2012 totaled 15.1 billion pounds (6.85 million metric tons), up 3.3 percent from the same period a year earlier, government data show. Pork production last month rose to a record 2 billion pounds, up 16 percent from July and 5.6 percent higher than August 2011, USDA data show. The price of corn, the main ingredient in livestock feed, is up 48 percent since June 15 as the worst U.S. drought since 1956 erodes yields.

Wholesale pork prices slumped 11 percent in August, the biggest monthly slide since October 2010.