US Pork Supply Rises 2.3% As Exports Decline, USDA Says
March 25, 2013 | 1 min to read
Pork inventories in the U.S. increased 2.3 percent at the end of February from a year earlier as production gained and exports fell, the government said.
Warehouses held 636.69 million pounds of pork, up from 622.67 million on Feb. 29, 2012, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a report. Inventories rose 5 percent from the end of January.
U.S. exporters shipped 423.116 million pounds (191,922 metric tons) of pork in January, down 16 percent from 501.88 million pounds in the same period a year earlier. Wholesale pork fell 4.4 percent last month, the biggest slide since August, USDA data show. Pork output rose 2.2 percent to 23.25 billion pounds last year, government data show.
“You’ve got pork production up, and you’ve got lack of exports,” Dick Quiter, an account executive at McFarland Commodities LLC in Chicago, said in a telephone interview before the report. “They’re not reaching into the freezer to make up any differences anywhere.”
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Bloomberg