Hog Sector Income On Roller Coaster Ride

Figures released by Statistics Canada show the hog sector has endured an up and down roller coaster ride over the past number of years in terms of farm income.

by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online

Statistics Canada has released its report on farm income for 2017 and for the first three quarters of 2018.

Stephen Boyd, the Head of the Farm Cash Receipts Unit at Statistics Canada, says in the hog sector, as with other livestock sectors, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

“In 2017 gains were recorded throughout the livestock sector with hog, cattle and calf receipts all increased”

“The livestock has been performing well. It’s in general a bit of an up and down but livestock revenues were up a little over five percent in 2017.
However this is following an almost seven percent drop in the previous year.

“In 2017 gains were recorded throughout the livestock sector as the supply managed industries as well as hog and cattle and calf receipts all increased.
Aside from the net income data for 2017, we also released on the same day farm cash receipts data for the first three quarters of 2018, up until the end of September.

“So far in 2018 livestock receipts were down slightly, around one percent on a year over year basis with lower hog receipts being the major factor as prices have fallen in 2018.”

Boyd notes there was a very healthy increase in 2014 in the hog sector which was followed by a couple of years of declines before we had again a pretty good increase in 2017, of a little over 10 percent.

However, he says, over the first three quarters of 2018 farm cash receipts have fallen by 11 percent with hog slaughter receipts dropping by over 300 million dollars mainly due to lower prices.