Drought this year has been a major contributor to higher corn prices. For livestock producers this crop year just serves to heighten concerns about feed prices and availability. Mike Platt at Indiana Pork says even with a short corn crop there will be corn available.
“It’s just going to be a matter of at what price,” he told HAT. “A lot of people right now who are struggling and on the edge are having to make some tough decisions in terms of what they’re doing for going forward in their business. This has been an ongoing concern of ours and is just being highlighted right now because of the drought.”
Platt says drought brings long term implications that pork producers will be considering.
“We certainly have producers at every end of the spectrum and there are clearly some who are looking at their farrowing intentions and scaling back just to shorten the size of their herd and to diversify their own business itself as well. So it’s really all over the map right now.”
HAT’s Gary Truitt late last week asked Platt if he thinks there will be an issue about who gets the corn, ethanol or livestock producers.
“Clearly making sure that there is food available for live animals has always been a critical piece to this, and we continue conversations in Washington DC to look at the law, to look at priority in crisis situations like this. We can’t turn the lights off and stop feeding animals for several weeks until the crop is available. So we’re continuing to monitor and continuing to talk to legislators in DC and making sure that this continues to be a top priority.”[audio:https://www.hoosieragtoday.com//wp-content/uploads//2012/07/Drought-effect-on-livestock-producers.mp3|titles=Drought effect on livestock producers]