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Canadian
Breeding Herd Cutbacks Begin to Slow
Canada’s breeding herd continued to shrink in the second
quarter but it did so at the slowest rate since the fourth quarter of
2007. Statistics Canada’s Hog Statistics report, released on
Thursday, showed the Canadian breeding herd numbered 1.3798 million head
on July 1, down fractionally from the April 1 inventory of 1.383 million
head and 4.6% lower than the inventory level on July 1, 2008. As has
been the case for all of this large liquidation, the western provinces
accounted for more of the decline (down 7.2%) than did the east (down
2.4%).
This reduction in Canada’s breeding herd, when combined with the 2.7%
reduction in the U.S. herd on June 1, puts the Canada-U.S. herd at 7.347
million head, 3% lower than one year ago. The June-July count is 5.2%
lower than the herd was at its peak of 7.752 million in October 2007.
Several analysts, including me, believe that the combined Canada-U.S.
herd will have to decline by about this same amount – 400,000 head –
to balance supply and demand at price levels that will be profitable
relative to higher costs.
Canadian producers intend to farrow 740,700 sows in the July-September
quarter, 7.5% fewer than one year ago. Those intentions rise to 743,700
sows in the October-December quarter, only 2.5% lower than last year.
Farrowing intentions in the eastern provinces for the two quarters are
virtually unchanged (-0.5% and -0.6%) from last year, meaning
virtually all of the future decline will come in the west.
FULL ARTICLE
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Maximize
Total Born to Reduce “Per Pig” Costs
With the current state of the swine industry, to be a
low-cost producer, it is important to recognize that “total pigs
born” has a big impact on the cost of weaned pigs.
Looking at the Swine Management Services’ farm benchmarking database,
we find some very interesting trends. For example, Table 1 shows the
top 5% of the 607 farms in the database have the potential for 35.33
pigs born/mated female/year, which calculates to 14.53 pigs born/female
farrowed. There are a few farms that top 15 pigs born/litter. Pigs born
drops 5.48 pigs/mated female/year to 29.85 in the All Farms’ average,
which brings the per-female-farrowed average down to 12.69 pigs.
Graph 1 is even more eye-opening as to the potential and variation in
total pigs born/mated female/year. We see a normal bell curve variation
with the top farms at 39 pigs/mated female/year, but the bottom end
comes in at just 20 pigs/mated female/year – a 19-pig difference!
We did not expect to see such a large variation in potential. Following
are some factors that can affect “potential” total pigs born/mated
female/year.
FULL ARTICLE
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Conservation Stewardship Program
Producers can now sign up for the new Conservation
Stewardship Program (CSP). CSP is a voluntary program that encourages
agricultural and forestry producers to maintain existing conservation
activities and adopt additional ones on their operations. Eligible
lands include cropland, grassland, prairie, improved pastureland,
rangeland, non-industrial private forestland and agricultural land under
the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe. Sign-up deadline is Sept. 30.
More information is available at www.nrcs.usda.gov/new_csp.
Estate Tax Relief for Agriculture — Congressmen Mike Thompson
(D-CA) and John Salazar (D-CO) have introduced H.R. 3524, the “Family
Farm Preservation and Conservation Estate Tax Act.” This legislation
will exempt working farm and ranch land from the estate tax, as long as
the land is kept in production agriculture. If the land is used or sold
for other purposes, a recapture tax would be imposed.
FULL ARTICLE
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Three
Groups Ask For Sow Buy-Out Program
Sept. 1, 2009: Carthage Veterinary
Service (CVS), Ltd. 19th Annual Swine Conference, Western Illinois
University, Macomb, IL; contact: CVS at (217) 357-2811 or visit www.hogvet.com.
Sept. 10, 2009: Midwest Swine Nutrition Conference,
Indiana Farm Bureau Building, Indianapolis, IN; contact: Tip Cline at
Purdue University at tcline@purdue.edu or visit www.swinenutritionconference.com.
Sept. 15-16, 2009: 70th University of Minnesota
Nutrition Conference, Holiday Inn, Owatonna, MN; contact: http://www.ansci.umn.edu/mnc.html.
FULL ARTICLE
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