CNS Canada — With barbecue season on the horizon, prices for Canadian pork rose during the week ended April 27, breaking out of their month-long fall. The timing could be perfect, as negotiators have already begun working on improving trade relations and cancelling proposed tariffs on Chinese imports of U.S. pork and other goods. “Prices […] Read more
Hog prices steadying as barbecue season nears
Pork supply issues hit Maple Leaf’s Q1 ledger
Reuters — Meat packer Maple Leaf Foods posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly profit as lower prices and a temporary interruption in supplies hurt sales of its pork products, sending its shares to their lowest in nearly two years. The company, one of Canada’s biggest pork processors, said that processed fresh pork sales were affected by a […] Read more
U.S. to export pork to Argentina after 26 years
Washington/Chicago | Reuters — U.S. pork exporters will soon be free to ship meat to Argentina for the first time in 26 years after the two countries thrashed out an agreement to overturn an Argentinian import ban. The deal is a sliver of good news for U.S. farmers facing trade tariffs and disruption to exports […] Read more
U.S. livestock: CME lean hogs jump on short-covering
Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures rallied more than three per cent on Monday in a short-covering and bargain-buying rebound from life-of-contract lows posted last week, traders said. Some contracts, including actively-traded June, rose by as much as the daily three-cent limit as a steady slide in prices over the past […] Read more
Pork producers tackle new challenges, opportunities in 2018
CNS Canada — Pork producers in Western Canada are still grappling with old problems even as new opportunities present themselves in the export market, according to presenters at the Manitoba Pork Council’s annual general meeting Thursday in Winnipeg. Canadian pork exports in 2017 totaled 1.29 billion tonnes to a tune of $4 billion. On its […] Read more
Tariffs raise tough questions for pork industry
CNS Canada — Representatives from the two largest pork-exporting states in the U.S. were in Winnipeg Thursday to take in the Manitoba Pork Council’s general meeting. The delegates, who hailed from Iowa and Minnesota, talked about the various challenges facing their industry. In 2017, over a quarter of the U.S. pork industry’s C$6.5 billion market […] Read more
U.S. meat groups fear for market growth with China beef tariff hike
Chicago | Reuters — China’s proposal on Wednesday for tariffs on U.S. beef confirmed the worst-case scenario for the U.S. cattle industry, trade groups said Wednesday, even as they remained hopeful the dispute could be resolved quickly. China listed U.S. goods from soybeans to beef that could potentially incur a 25 per cent import tariff […] Read more
U.S. March hog herd hits record high
Chicago | Reuters — The number of hogs on U.S. farms in the December-February quarter was up 3.1 per cent from the same period a year ago, a record high for the quarter, according to Thursday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. Farmers added extra pigs, encouraged by less-costly feed during that period and the […] Read more
U.S. pork to feel further chill from China tariff threat
Beijing/Chicago | Reuters — China’s threat of steep tariffs on U.S. pork imports knocked down U.S. hog futures prices and shares of producers on Friday, while increasing fears of hard times for farmers already facing weaker demand from the world’s top buyer of the meat. U.S. farmers have worried for months that rising trade tensions […] Read more
Loose housing improvement for sows wins Aherne prize
Reading Time: < 1 minute An isolation crate developed for an Alberta sow farm is one of two winners of this year’s F. X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production. The prize, named in honour of the late Frank Aherne, a professor of swine nutrition at the University of Alberta, is awarded for innovative solutions to production challenges. Sunterra Farms […] Read more