OCR Text |
Show f&ffi livestock?! JiSituationj I The smallest fall pig crop in the ' past twenty years is forecast for the fall of 1934 by the United States department de-partment of agriculture! The extremely extreme-ly grave drouth situation, coupled with the Agricultural Adjustment ad-' ministration's corn-hog reduction pro-! gram, has created a situation that may well cause concern. The United States pork production for the next year is going to fall far short of average av-erage production, according to official estimates, and may tend to make pork something of a luxury. Hog prices have advanced during recent weeks, mainly because of light supplies. Here in Southern California hog slaughter continues to be considerably consi-derably below either last year or the year previous. While the market price of live hogs stands at around five cents a pound, which in itself would mean cheap pork, it must be remembered remem-bered that the federal processing tax of $2.25 .a cwt. must be added to the market price, which makes pork cost a packer and the ultimate consumer relatively high. Government estimates indicate the j United States spring pig crop to be ; around 37,427,000 head, a decrease of! 28 per cent smaller than a year ago, or a reduction of 14,595,000 head. It j is also indicated that the number of ; sows bred to farrow in the fall of 1934 will be 38 per cent smaller than a year previous. If the government estimates es-timates are correct, and with pasture and crop conditions as bad as they are, this seems likely, only about 9,- 551,000 sows will have farrowed in! 1934, 31.3 per cent less than in 1933, j and 30.4 per cent less than in 1932. It would seem self-evident that these statistics presage a period of reduction in pork production, and, if buying power shows any gains what-! j ever, we should be in for a period of , attractive hog prices. Despite the huge decreases in production, breeding . stock is still available at relatively low prices, partly because of serious I j drouth conditions in so many of the hog raising states. It would seem that the man who has sufficient feed and capital with which to carry on would, find it worthwhile to consider getting back into pork production, especially in the western states, where we have always been deficient in supplying our home pork requirements. It seems to me that the young men in 4-H clubs and Future Farmer organizations or-ganizations might well consider the purchase of a few good bred gilts or sows. While we have been going through trying and unusual times dur- ing the past few years, it should be kept in mind that year in and year out the old sow has been a profitable part of the farm set-up. Pork is and al-j ways will be one of the great staple foods. Now it looks as though production produc-tion is in line to again become a profitable pro-fitable sideline. |