Producers Offer Different Perspective on Prices, NCGA Says (5-25-07)

A Minnesota hog producer has taken to cyberspace to challenge some popular misconceptions about the price of food.

Judy Hanson raises corn and beans, and finishes hogs on her family farm in St. Peter, Minn. She also maintains a blog (a kind of electronic diary) on the Internet. Hanson told her readers that after reviewing her costs and payments, higher corn prices raised the cost of her hog production by about 6 cents per pound.

Hanson says the relationship between corn and food prices is not as tight as it once was. “In fact, history tells us, the prices of corn and the price of retail meat have been decoupled,” she notes. “Looking at the years 2001-2005 shows a couple of years when the price of corn went down and the price of beef and pork went up.”

Breaking down her analysis even further, Hanson explains she uses 7.7 bushels of corn for each hog she raises. During a nine-month period when her corn costs nearly doubled, the cost to feed each hog increased by only $12.55.

“Even though we are paying more for corn today, it has little effect on the price of meat to the consumer,” she says.

Read more of Judy Hanson’s opinions on corn and livestock at her personal blog http://judydhanson.blogspot.com/. Her blog was also reprinted by the Illinois Corn Growers Association at http://www.ilcorn.org/update/html/5-21-07.html.