Finally, Georgia pork prices are sizzling again.

“Bacon prices are really propping up the entire retail pork
industry right now,” said
John McKissick, an economist with the University of Georgia
Extension Service.

Current retail bacon prices are as high as they’ve ever been, he
said. He cites two main
reasons: stronger demand for bacon and leaner hogs.

More fast food outlets are adding bacon to their burger
products. The bacon adds
flavor, and more customers find they like that added flavor.

Extension foods and nutrition specialist Connie Crawley said
most people can work
bacon into a well-balanced diet.

“If you choose a bacon burger, you might pick a smaller burger
and select a lower-fat
side dish like a baked potato with a reduced-calorie drink,” she
said. “It’s all in how
often and how much you eat it.”

The hogs Georgia farmers raise in the ’90s have about half the
fat of hogs raised in the
1960s. They’ve responded to consumer demand for leaner pork cuts
like loins and
roasts.

Leaner hogs naturally have less bacon. Extension animal
scientist David Bishop said
bacon makes up about 12 percent of the meat from today’s leaner
hogs.

“If they get much leaner, we start losing meat quality and
edibility,” he said.

Those lean hogs are in demand around the world, too –
“particularly in Asia and the
Orient,” McKissick said.

Through 1995, the cost to raise hogs was almost higher than the
price farmers could get
for them. “As we got into 1996, demand started rising,”
McKissick said. “And farmers
responded to meet that demand.”

For farmers, though, as price at the livestock markets rose, so
did the cost to raise
them. Feed prices soared. Pork prices were looking up, McKissick
said, but many hog
farms weren’t making a profit.

As the cost to feed hogs drops through early 1997, the profits
in raising hogs will rise.

McKissick figures farmers will increase the number of hogs they
raise over the next
year to meet foreign market and domestic demand.

That’s good for retail shoppers, too.

“1997 will probably mean lower retail prices,” he said. “Prices
will possibly drop as
much as 10 cents per pound on some cuts.”

The increase in pork demand, both by foreign markets and the
fast food industry, is
good news for Georgia pork producers.

“The 1996 prices were the highest we’ve seen to farmers since
1990,” McKissick said.