COLUMBUS – Agriculture expert Andy Vance attended the World Pork Expo and spoke with Spectrum News 1 about what he learned and Ohio’s place in the pork market.
Vance said the big topic of discussion was how the market will fare during the next 12 months.
“There’s a great deal of uncertainty in the marketplace for a lot of the reasons that we might talk about across a variety of industries, but inflation, certainly energy costs, just the cost of doing business in general [is more expensive],” Vance said. “Labor is a big topic, so pork producers here are seeing relatively good prices for pork products and meat that the retail sector certainly has been pretty strong, but the cost of actually producing that pork and the amount of money that’s actually going into farmers pockets right now, it’s okay, but three to six months down the line, maybe not so much.”
Vance said Ohio is consistently landing in the top 10 list of pork-producing states.
“It’s one of the most important commodities that we produce, certainly in the overall basket of agricultural products that Ohio farmers produce,” Vance said. “Pork, a huge part of not just the meat selection that Ohio consumers can have, but also, of course, those pigs have to be fed, so corn and soybeans that are raised in Ohio go to feed those pigs. The ripple effect through food processing; there are a lot of different sectors of Ohio’s economy that are touched by pork production.”
Vance said farmers he spoke with at the expo were “cautiously optimistic” optimistic about the pork market’s future, while consumers seem to be “very worried” about the inflationary aspects of our current economy.
“There is a sense that, ‘you know what, we’ve got some opportunity to be profitable here, at least in the short run, despite some of these challenges, but there is a lot of uncertainty.’ Now, that part didn’t surprise me so much, but I was surprised at just how optimistic it feels like people are. And maybe it’s just the fact that we’re able to meet in person and gather, which we haven’t been able to do for a few years,” he said. “But yeah, the uncertainty being overshadowed by the optimism, I think is probably what surprised me the most this week.”
