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Pork market faces headwinds in ‘23

An ag economist says pork had a strong year in 2022, but challenges are ahead.

“The last eight weeks or so we have seen consumer level demand stay pretty steady,” said Dr. Steve Meyer with Partners for Production Agriculture. “But

we’ve seen wholesale demand and hog demand kind of slide some.”

He tells Brownfield cost of production continues to be a concern. “It’s going to cost us about a dollar per pound to make these hogs,” Meyer said. “Costs are high, and they are going to stay that way as far as we can see.”

Meyer says demand is critical. “I think that could kind of correct itself as we go through the spring and tighten these supplies a bit,” he said. “We will pull those two demands back up toward consumer demand. It’s really important the consumer demand stay strong because it gives us space to do that.”

Meyer says the pork market is in a similar situation to January of last year.