The USDA’s Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report shows some short-term expansion.
The U.S. swine inventory on March 1st of 72.86 million head was down 2% from the last quarter due to due to a revision in the USDA data, but that is slightly larger than this time last year.
That included modest year-to-year increases in both the breeding and the marketing herds, to 6.127 million and 66.734 million head, respectively, along with a slightly larger pig crop of 32.1 million head and record number of pigs per litter at 11.02, against a fractional decrease in the number of sows farrowed.
