The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released the Beef and Pork production and pricing outlook for March. World Agricultural Outlook Board Chairman Mark Jekanowski explains, “Beef production, we lowered down to 25.8 billion pounds and this reduction is just based on recent slaughter data, seeing a little bit of a slowdown in the rate of slaughter, which isn’t too surprising given the very tight packer margins that we’re also observing in the industry, though slightly offsetting that slower pace of slaughter were some higher cattle weights. But overall, beef production adjusted lower this month and year over year, if realized, U.S. beef production would be down about 190 million pounds. So our steer price forecast this month, we raised $1.75 per hundredweight, now at $242 per hundredweight and that would be up $17.63 per hundredweight year over year.”
Jekanowski also shared the outlook for pork products saying, “Pork production, we’ve made no changes this month.Hogs are also, I think, benefiting from both the high beef prices and strong beef demand, supporting pork demand and hog prices as well. Our hog price forecast this month, we raised $1.25 per hundredweight, now at $70.25 per hundredweight and that would be up $1.45 year over year. And again, that’s reflecting both strong domestic pork demand and export demand as well.”
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.