Pork outlook up as corn prices go down

This cautious position is expected given the wide swings in both hog and feed prices evident this spring. In addition, little change should be expected in the hog herd until the feed supply situation is better known this fall, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist.

"The USDA's June Hogs and Pigs report indicated that producers maintained the size of the breeding herd over the past year," he said. "North Carolina continued to lead the states reducing their breeding herds. The national breeding herd has declined 5 percent in the past three years, and North Carolina alone accounts for about half of that total."

The smaller sow herd remains very productive, however, as the number of pigs per litter reached 10 pigs for the first time ever this spring. This resulted in the number of market hogs being up by nearly 1 percent over levels of a year earlier.

According to Hurt, consumers will have to pay record high prices for U.S. pork this year as high feed prices over the past four years are finally being transmitted to consumers.

"Retail prices through May this year have averaged a record $3.35 per pound, which is up 14 percent from $2.93 a pound during the same period in 2010. Everyone in the pork marketing channel is sharing as packer gross margins are up 10 percent, retail gross margins are up 14 percent, and producers have received 16 percent higher prices," he said.

Heavily contributing to U.S. pork demand is a record level of pork exports. Numbers through April show a 19 percent increase over the same period in 2010.

"For the first four months of the year, exports represented an amazing 22 percent of all the pork being produced in the United States. The big export increases this year are heading to Asia, led by South Korea, Japan, Russia and China. USDA projects that exports for the entire year will be up 15 percent," he said.

There just isn't much pork left for U.S. consumers as supplies per person will be down about 3 percent in 2011.

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(Research Triangl Park, N.C. and Goodwood, England) Bloodhound SSC, a project aiming to break the land speed record with a supersonic car powered by a jet engine and a rocket, today announces that Cisco, has joined the project as Networking and Video Partner. The engineering collaboration, detailed today at the World renowned motoring event, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, sees Cisco provide video-based collaboration and networking technology to the engineering and education elements of the project. The first fruits of the new partnership can be seen next week, with the launch of Bloodhound’s new web TV channel, Cisco BHTV.

Cisco BHTV will help ‘share the adventure’; relaying data, images and interviews from the remote South African desert into homes and schools worldwide – a key part of BLOODHOUND’s International education initiative which is at the heart of the overall project.

Audiences will be taken behind the scenes of the Project as it advances via bi-monthly films produced and narrated by Stefan Marjoram, an artist, photographer and director at Aardman Studios.

Episodes One and Two, going live today, record the moment the first metal components for Bloodhound’s chassis were manufactured and show how students at Joseph Leckie College in Wallsall bid to set a new Guinness World Record with a (Bloodhound-inspired) scale model rocket car.  If you want to get a taste for how exciting and nerve-wracking the record-breaking business can be, even in miniature, watch their film at http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/ciscobhtv.

The special nature of the Land Speed Record means competitors have near total freedom to innovate. This is why BLOODHOUND SSC is utterly unique:  a 12.8m long, 133,000thp prototype sporting a Falcon hybrid rocket, EJ 200 Eurofighter jet and a Cosworth F1 engine. It also gives the BLOODHOUND team the freedom to share every aspect of this ‘engineering adventure’ with schools, fans and followers around the globe.

Less visible to the outside world, but just as crucial to the project, is Cisco’s role providing state of the art connectivity for The Bloodhound Technical Centre, the Project’s borderless office based in Bristol. With over 200 component and product suppliers to liaise with, huge manufacturing design files to be shared and an international team to coordinate, seamless communications are essential.

Emma Roffey, Director of Marketing and Communications for Ciscosaid, “Bloodhound is a once in a lifetime engineering adventure that embodies many of our values – the sharing of ideas, bringing people together and using innovation to inspire. We are delighted to be powering Cisco BHTV as it gives the Bloodhound project an exciting new way to reach its audience around the world, while our team here are excited to provide communications connectivity in the South African desert conditions. In Bloodhound we have a partner who recognises the power and scale of network technologies to power critical video components of their global engineering and education project.

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