This afternoon I fly to Hannover, Germany. Eurotier, the world’s largest livestock trade show, is held there on alternate years. Early attendance estimates are 160,000 for the 3 day show next week. I’ve never attended but I’ve seen the map … Continue reading →

Optimism is returning to the hog market. For the week ending September 28, 2012 the average spot market price as quoted by USDA for weaned pigs was $15.14 per pig delivered. This week’s average price was $43.76 per pig delivered. … Continue reading →

We received our first taste of winter this week with snow in eastern South Dakota, southwest Minnesota, northwest Iowa and northeast Nebraska. In my farm visits the past few weeks I’ve been working with producers, contract growers and production system … Continue reading →

This week I spent some time on an upcoming presentation I’m doing in Germany next month on how do we produce the pig of the future. For 45 minutes I get to use my crystal ball and think about the … Continue reading →

This week I’ve spent quite a bit of time in my office working on presentations for upcoming meetings. I’ve also been working on papers for proceedings of meetings to be held several months from now and digging into the research … Continue reading →

As people involved in the business of pork production, we tend to think of our slaughter plants as the final destination for our production. In fact, the slaughter plants don’t view themselves as pork processors. Rather, they are increasing viewed … Continue reading →

We’re far enough along with harvest that many producers have begun pumping manure pits. Yesterday I received a call regarding 30 pigs that died over the weekend during pumping and last night an email about rumors of increased pig deaths … Continue reading →

While I missed writing a blog last week, I did have the chance to visit with many readers of this commentary at the Leman Swine Health Conference and Minnesota Nutrition Conference. Both conferences had excellent speakers/topics. In spite of the … Continue reading →

At a meeting of the Minnesota Pork Board research committee yesterday, Dr John Goihl, a consulting swine nutritionist in Minnesota, put the problem of high feed grain prices and limited supplies in perspective. He said there are really two different … Continue reading →

With the extremely large numbers of slaughter pigs coming to market in the past 3 weeks there has been a lot of commentary written on where these numbers of pigs are coming from. Are producers pulling pigs forward in an … Continue reading →