The law of supply and demand will soon work in favor of pork
lovers. A University of Georgia
expert says an oversupply of hogs is
bringing supermarket prices down and forcing Georgia farmers
to sell their hogs at a loss.

“This fall has been disastrous
for hog farmers as prices for hogs
are much weaker than has been expected,” said
John
McKissick, an Extension
Service agricultural economist with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.

“The hog numbers are so high that farmers are having to
sell at prices
considerably lower than their production costs,” McKissick
said. “Needless to
say, hog producers are in a losing position. And the end of
1998 will be the worst.”

Georgia consumers, though, will soon reap the benefits of
the farmers’ woes.

“Pork products are going to cost considerably less this
holiday season,”
McKissick said. “There will be some excellent deals on
holiday hams and other pork
products. “Overall retail pork prices are expected to drop
about 9 percent.”

McKissick said shoppers should be prepared to stock their
freezers with pork products
as prices drop in this “once-in-five-years deal.” Holiday
prices for
higher-value products such as spiral cut hams will be
excellent values, he said.

The low market prices have some Georgia farmers pulling
out of the hog business. Tift
County hog farmer Milton Thompson is one of them.

“We’ve decided to liquidate our herd and more or less
sell out of the hog
business,” Thompson said. “After working the past four or
five years for
nothing, I don’t think I’ll miss it at all.”

This year’s prices forced Thompson to sell his 250-pound
hogs for $57 each. That’s far
below his cost of production. Last year, Thompson sold the
same size hogs for $135 each.

Reactions like Thompson’s put shoppers at the mercy of
the market, too. Good deals
don’t last forever. The rules of supply and demand will soon
come back to haunt pork
lovers.

“As with all meat products, we go through cycles that
bring good news to consumers
and bad news to producers,” McKissick said. “As a result,
farmers are going to
cut back on production. That will lead to higher prices in
the grocery stores in about
nine months.”

It will take at least nine months, or until late 1999 for
farmers’ cutbacks to result
in higher prices, McKissick said.

“The consumer has a long time to benefit from relatively
low pork prices,” he
said. “You won’t find many better deals on pork than you’re
going to find right
now.”