Tyler Fulton the director of risk management with h@ms Marketing Services said markets show 2021 will be a much more profitable year for pork producers than 2020 with COVID 19 a dominant factor influencing live hog prices.  
Fulton said 2020 showed event disruptions in the supply chain, having negative consequences and June, July and August saw prices drop lower than 140 dollars per hundred kilograms in some weeks resulting in losses of 20 to 30 to 40 dollars per pig. 
One indication of better prices is that the breeding herd will be down substantially, with the tough 2020 showing some pullback in production gains. 
“The latest Hogs and Pigs Report indicated that and I think that, if current forward prices are representative of where cash markets will be, then I think we can expect to see a profitable summer.” 
He said producers are hedging the summer months, locking in at better than 200 dollars a pig. By any measure, that’s a reasonable level and great indication producers may recover some of the equity loss in 2020. COVID 19 is still with us, and some negative impacts could happen but there is room for optimism. 
Fulton said producers need to cover some of their price risks by taking forward contracts at hopefully profitable levels. 
“We know that we can expect a fairly large U.S. hog slaughter over the next two months with expected weekly kills of around 2.6 million hogs.” 
Compared to three years ago, that’s a 10 percent jump for that time frame to put that into perspective. While not typically the peak season by any stretch but a reasonably good period of growth could mean it’s this year coming up see a little bit of moderation with higher prices into the fall months. 
He said producers need to keep tabs and even keep a benchmark as to their expectations for this fall and the latter half of 2021 and be prepared to cover some of that price risk by taking forward contracts, for example at hopefully profitable levels. 
Fulton said a good lesson to learn from 2020 is not to rely on anything necessarily being there. Sometimes a wild pitch can up end-all of thoughts and predictions on what the year would bring.  
However, on the other hand, most of the supply chain stepped up, and no major disruptions through the transportation side and consumption continued. It altered how it got to the consumer, but there’s resiliency in that demand for the product.  
“I’m optimistic we’ll work through any of the future disruptions.”  
Before COVID 19 saw a slight increase in pork consumed outside of the home, the pandemic upended that average trend and consumers ate their pork at home. The system and the markets responded initially with volatility. Still, later, when it became apparent that retailers, for example, could ramp up their sales, if needed, then the markets got a lot more comfortable with pivoting back and forth quickly. •
— By Harry Siemens