NHF_WEEKLY PREVIEW_ A Penton Media Property August 24, 2009 If you want to view this on the web go to: http://enews.penton.com/enews/nationalhogfarmer/v/414 MARKET PREVIEW --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. To view the full article go to: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/weekly-preview/0824-canadian-breeding-herd-cutbacks PRODUCTION PREVIEW --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. To view the full article go to: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/weekly-preview/0824-maximize-total-born-reduce-pig LEGISLATIVE PREVIEW --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 (http://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. To view the full article go to: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/weekly-preview/0824-conservation-stewardship-program NEWS FLASH --Three Groups Ask For Sow Buy-Out Program Three pork producer marketing groups are requesting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome) (USDA) institute a sow buy-out program to prop up the ailing pork industry. Producers Livestock Marketing Association (http://www.producerslivestock.com/), National Farmers Union (http://nfu.org/) and Allied Producers Cooperative (http://www.alliedproducers.com/) are calling on USDA to evaluate the pork market impact of a $200-million, federally funded sow buy-out program to reduce pork supplies. The groups say pork producers are losing more than $30/hog today and are projected to lose nearly $54/head this fall. The marketing groups also expressed support for: • The National Pork Producer Council's (http://www.nppc.org/) request to provide assistance for U.S. pork producers, including three separate $50-million pork purchase allotments and allocation of $100 million in program funds to address the H1N1 Flu Outbreak Virus (http://nationalhogfarmer.com/health-diseases/0715-stevenson-answers-h1n1-questions/). • U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk's efforts to reopen the Chinese market to U.S. pork. To view the full article go to: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/marketing/news/0820-pork-industry-sow-buy-out PORK INDUSTRY CALENDAR 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 (http://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 (mailto:tcline@purdue.edu) or visit www.swinenutritionconference.com (http://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 (http://www.ansci.umn.edu/mnc.html). To view the full article go to: http://nationalhogfarmer.com/calendar/ ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER You are subscribed to this newsletter as #email# To subscribe to this newsletter go to: http://subscribe.nationalhogfarmer.com/?tc=NLSUB To unsubscribe from this newsletter go to: http://subscribe.nationalhogfarmer.com/?tc=NLSUB&cid=#message_id#&lid=#list_id#&email=#email# Send Comments & Questions Dale Miller, Editor, National Hog Farmer, mailto:dale.miller@penton.com Penton Media | 249 W. 17th Street | New York, NY 10011 Copyright 2009, Penton Media. All rights reserved. This article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, re-disseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Penton Media.