Top 40 sow owners expected to lose more than $18 million each

The top 40 sow owners in the U.S. will each lose more than $18 million due to the COVID-19 pandemic, projects Dermot Hayes, an economist with Iowa State University. 

On Wednesday, Hayes joined host Chip Flory on “AgriTalk” to discuss USDA’s COVID-19 relief package and the pork market outlook. 

The relief package includes $3 billion in planned agricultural product purchases and $1.6 billion in direct payments to hog farmers, including payment limitations of $125,000 per commodity and $250,000 per individual.

“It’s a joke. If you take all their hogs to market and then look at the reduction and the losses [the top 40 sow owners are] going to experience on those market hogs, they’re going to lose more than $18 million, every single one of them will lose more than $18 million because of this,” Hayes says. “They own two thirds of the hogs, so for them to get $125,000, it’s almost an insult. It’s just not going to help.”
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The South African Pork Producers’ Organisation (SAPPO) coordinates industry interventions and collaboratively manages risks in the value chain to enable the sustainability and profitability of pork producers in South Africa.