HOG FARMERS HARD HIT BY SEVERAL FACTORS

Farming never has offered as much financial security as other types of employment, but the situation currently facing the nation's hog producers is approaching disastrous proportions.

Stories abound about how a glut of hogs and depressed prices are bringing about the ruination of hog farmers. A producer at Neponset, Ill., ran an ad in a newspaper and gave away 60 hogs to anyone who wanted them, saying it was his last hurrah to the business. Supermarkets were charging more for a 10-pound ham than he could get for a whole hog. A Minnesota producer saw the value of his sows fall from $30,000 to $5,000. Although he lost $40,000 on his hog operation last year, he will go deeper in debt in hopes of riding out this latest economic crisis.

Some hog producers in Missouri decided to donate their hogs rather than go to the bother of taking them to market and get little for them. So, in a kindly gesture, the Missouri Pork Producers Association is giving more than 50,000 pounds of pork products to six food banks around the state.

Hog prices have plunged to record lows, from 55 cents a pound two years ago to 8 cents in December. Producers nationwide lost $2.6 billion in 1998 based on an average loss of $27 per animal. And the market isn't expected to change in the near future. One livestock specialist at the University of Missouri predicts hog farmers could lose $1.5 billion more by midsummer.

Hog farmers did well in 1996 and 1997, so producers began raising more animals. At the same time, many slaughterhouses closed. Farmers who spent $100 to raise a hog faced selling the animal for $20. Hogs must be sold when ready for market, and processing plants have more hogs than they can handle regardless of how little they pay for them.

There is no immediate solution for producers, not until a shortage of hogs develops, and many producers won't be able to ride out the long wait.

Meanwhile, one would expect retail prices for pork to come down. But they haven't, and that is cause for concern. The secretary of agriculture, Dan Glickman, wants a federal probe into price fixing, and his agency is conducting an investigation into the price spread between what farmers get and retail levels.

One doesn't need a Harvard economics degree to see that something isn't right when a single ham costs the consumer more in the grocery store than the farmer gets for the whole hog.

What is unfair is that the farmer once again must pay the price while others take advantage of a depressed market that is driving him out of business.