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NPPC PRESIDENT: HOG MARKET CAN'T KEEP UP WITH FEED COSTS
Mar. 11, 2013
BrownfieldAgNews reports:
The president of the National Pork Producers Council says the market for hogs is having difficulty keeping up with the cost of feed. RC Hunt, a producer from North Carolina says part of the discussion at the Pork Forum this week in Orlando, Fla., has been about markets.
Hunt says the NPPC is one of the few livestock groups not opposed to the renewable fuel standard, which mandates production volumes of fuels, some of them made from corn and soybeans. The extra demand created by renewable fuels production, and scarcity of grains brought on by the drought, has made for high feed costs.
In view of the drought, Hunt said pork producers and other livestock organizations tried unsuccessfully to negotiate waivers from the EPA-administered renewable fuel standard.
"We just really wanted some practical approach to some waivers and some elasticity in this process, because our concern today still remains, maybe even beyond the price of the product, is the availability of the product," Hunt told Brownfield Ag News by telephone from the conference in Fla.
Producers are grateful for snow blanketing parts of the Corn Belt, says Hunt, but he fears that might also delay spring planting.
"When is the first new crop corn going to be available to our producers?" wonders Hunt. "We've got to manage from today up until that time."
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