Consumers might see higher pork prices at the store later this year.
That’s because the pork industry is finally recovering from a virus that decimated herds several years ago, experts say.
“We’re estimating profits this year for the hog industry at about $6 a head,” said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist. He added that producers experienced a loss of about $3 per head in 2015, so this year’s prediction translates into an improvement of $9 per head.
Smaller breeding herds and lower production costs are the two main reasons for the modest profits, he said.
In 2013 and 2014, about 9,000 pork producers in 31 states lost baby pigs to the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, the National Pork Board reported in 2015.
For two years, producers expanded their breeding herds in order to rebuild numbers, but there has been a slowdown in that expansion.
Pork producers plan to cut back on the number of pig births this spring and summer, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. They also plan to reduce the number of pregnant sows by 1 percent this spring and 3 percent this summer.