(Deyana Robova photo/iStock/Getty Images)

Canadian hog prices on rebound

CNS Canada — Improving trade relations and the emergence of swine fever in China have made their presence felt on the Canadian hog market. Weekly signature No. 5 base slaughter weight cash hog prices averaged $117.83 per 100 kg as of Friday, up by roughly $15 over the past two weeks. Those numbers are a […] Read more

There are 16 pigs shown here — raise them to market weight and you’re looking at a loss of $800 or more.

Price plunge spells disaster for Alberta hog farmers

Demand is strong, Canadian packers are short 70,000 hogs weekly, but prices have plunged

Reading Time: 5 minutes A crash in prices — fuelled by Washington’s tariff war — could spell the end for many of Alberta’s dwindling number of hog operations. The sector has already lost half of its hog farms in the past decade and with producers losing $50 on every animal they ship, more are looking at throwing in the […] Read more








(Regis Lefebure photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

U.S. livestock: Hog futures fall to new contract lows on heavy supplies

Chicago | Reuters – Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures tumbled about 3 percent to fresh life-of-contract lows on Wednesday as cash hog and pork prices extended declines amid abundant supplies and worries of sagging demand, traders said. Most active October lean hog futures fell 1.575 cents to 48.400 cents per pound while front-month August […] Read more

File photo

U.S. livestock: Feeder cattle fall on technical selling; hogs mostly lower

Chicago | Reuters – U.S. cattle futures fell on Tuesday, with feeder cattle easing about 2 percent on pressure from technical selling and abundant supplies, traders and analysts said. Lean hog futures also were mostly lower on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, weighed down by declining prices for hogs in cash markets and lower wholesale pork […] Read more


The pigs raised by Steph Campbell and husband Ben arrive in spring and are butchered in the fall.
Selling pork and eggs allows the couple to generate more sales from their customer base.

Couple weren’t millionaires — so they found a different way to farm

It’s not for everyone, says Ben Campbell, but direct marketing is a low-cost route to farming

Reading Time: 3 minutes Although Ben Campbell is a third-generation rancher, he didn’t have an operation he could take over. And when he looked at the math for starting his own ranch, it was worse than ugly — he figured he’d need $3 million in assets to generate an income of $50,000. “I didn’t have enough money to do […] Read more

Photo: File

U.S. livestock: Cattle futures rise on better beef packer demand

Chicago | Reuters – Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle futures rose sharply on Friday, lifted by better demand from beef packers who were bidding more aggressively to buy steers in cash markets, traders and analysts said. Technical buying also supported cattle futures, which broke out of a relatively narrow trade that had defined the market […] Read more