PORK POWERHOUSES 2022 EXCLUSIVE REPORT

Despite record-high production costs, overall sow numbers increase slightly.

- Courtney Leeper Girgis

The 37 largest U.S. pig producers added a total of 99,086 sows for an inventory of more than 4.2 million sows within these operations in 2022. This 2.4% increase, the greatest expansion shown in the Pork Powerhouses series since 2018, represents cautious optimism among the top pork producers in a year with record-high production costs and continued health, labor, and regulatory challenges. Higher production costs were driven by inflation and, perhaps more so, by shifts in supply and demand for various production inputs, most notably feed ingredients. Corn prices peaked at $7.38 per bushel in June 2022, according to USDA, with lower-than-expected supplies caused by war in Ukraine and drought across the Midwest. For pork producers, feed costs, which constitute about 60% of per-head costs, were up 24% in 2022 compared to 2021 and 59% compared to 2020, according to the National Pork Producers Council’s analysis of numbers from Iowa State University (ISU) Extension. Total cost of production increased 21% from 2021 to 2022.

DISEASE A SERIOUS THREAT IN 2022

While increasing costs for feed, construction, energy, transportation, and labor were on the minds of most of the large pork producers interviewed this year, several described disease as their greatest challenge in 2022. Strong consumer demand supported higher pig prices and enabled profitability most of the year. (Producers lost about $10 per head in November and $20 in December, according to ISU Extension.) However, sow farms were hit hard with diseases, especially porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), in late 2021 and spring 2022 with another surge during an abnormal time — in April and May 2022, says Terry Wolters, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) immediate past president and Stoney Creek Farms owner.