`Local farmers losing big in pork market`

By Hal Johnson
Herald Staff Writer

John Struthers is considering a new market strategy for selling hogs from his Coolspring Township farm.

At local livestock auctions, Struthers said, he gets from 13 cents to 16 cents a pound. He sells about 20 head each week. He said he can get 20 cents to 25 cents a pound from local meat processors.

That translates to $30 a hog, but it costs him up to $90 to raise each one. “I’m at the point when I will have to do something drastic,” Struthers said.

Passersby may see a “Hogs for sale” sign in front of the farm. Struthers said he is thinking about selling directly to consumers. That will cut out the middleman, but Struthers doubts he knows enough people with big freezers.

Struthers is among hog farmers nationwide who are receiving low prices due to an oversupply of hogs.

Mercer County farmers are faring better than those in the Mid-west, who are getting only 9 cents to 11 cents a pound, said Robert E. Calvert, Mercer County cooperative extension agent. He credits an abundance of processors for sparing farmers from more drastic conditions else-where. “Local slaughter plants are keeping the market up. We are blessed to have a lot of them,” he said.

Leali Brothers in Hermitage processes 25 to 50 hogs each week, which is slightly more than normal, said owner John Leali. The current market price is $15 per hundredweight but Leali buys hogs from farmers for $20 to $25 per hundredweight.

By processing hogs for their own consumption, farmers are driving up the local demand for hog processing, resulting in better-than-market prices for farmers, Leali said. Although he pays more than the market rate, Leali conceded local farmers are raising hogs at a loss.

Calvert cited oversupply and a lack of available slaughterhouses elsewhere for the price crunch. Pork is not exported abroad as much as is once was, he said.

That’s because the depressed Asian market, a major importer of American pork, has been buying far less, Leali said.

Prices that farmers receive have dropped drastically, but retail prices in supermarkets have dropped only “minutely,” he said.

“The middleman has to be making more of a profit than he ever has,” Calvert said.

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Updated January 8, 1999
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