Farmers are harvesting a record corn and soybean crop this year causing the price of grain commodities to tumble, which is great news for livestock producers and people who love bacon.
Since 2007, livestock producers have been hit by one market shock after another. First there was the Great Recession. Then the drought in 2012. Over the past year, hog producers across the country lost 4 percent of their litters to the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus(PEDv). And on top of it all, feed prices have soared.
Chris Hurt, agriculture economist at Purdue University, said all of these factors came together to cause a shortage in the meat supply. In 2007, there was enough meat in the country for each American to eat 220 pounds of it a year. Over the past seven years, it’s dropped to 199 pounds per person. Hurt broke it down into beef, pork, and poultry.
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