3x2 ⚽

Not a nice score, huh? Unfortunately, the bad news outnumber the good ones by one. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: for starters, for the rest of the summer and into fall, the market will have more hogs to digest than expected; the second bit of bad news comes out of California and is called Proposition 12 (set to come into effect on July 1); and the last one is that pig prices continue to edge lower in China – and it doesn't look like things are getting better anytime soon.

Enough of that, right? Let's go into the good part: a major change in the Corn Belt weather pattern, with lots of rain, is forecast for just before the pollination of the Midwestern corn crop (bye bye drought) – the resulting sharply lower corn prices will possibly be a game changer for the hog industry! Also, surveys indicate that roughly 3% fewer hogs will be available for market during the first half of 2024, thus lowering supply and (hopefully) boosting demand. For more details, click here. Fingers crossed that we'll turn the tables!