Coming soon: Pork and bacon shortage (Prices to double by next summer)

American Thinker ^ | 09/26/2012 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

A British pork industry group is predicting serious shortages next year that are now "unavoidable."

Fox News:

A world shortage of pork and bacon next year is "now unavoidable," a British industry group said in a press release.

Britain's National Pig Association (NPA) says that pig herds in Europe are shrinking. As if that isn't bad enough, this trend is "being mirrored around the world," the group says in the release. Drought conditions, especially in the U.S. and Russia, have taken a toll on the price of the grain crops used for animal feed, and world food prices are expected to reach record highs in 2013.

The number of slaughtered pigs could drop by as much as 10 percent in the second half of next year, the NPA says. This would double the price of European pork and pork products.

The NPA is advising supermarkets to pay Britain's pig farmers a fair price to counter the high price of feed or "risk empty spaces on their shelves next year," said NPA chairman Richard Longthorp.

In the United States, CBS Chicago reports that the price of pork belly has increased to $1.40 a pound in August, up from June's price of 94 cents a pound.   

[The Great RJ]

With 40% of the US corn crop going to produce worthless ethanol that does nothing to lower our use of oil, coupled with drought conditions in the corn belt expect shortages and high prices of other meats too. Stock up your freezers now as farmers are liquidating their herds and prices for a time will be low.

[Claud]

If the temps were cool, you could make sausage. Chop up your pork, grind it, add salt & spices, put it in casings, and then hang it up to cure for a few weeks. No electricity needed. We also made prosciutto once or twice—basically impregnate the meat and cover the outside with salt & pepper and let it sit. Trouble is, for all this you need temps around the 40s.

For summer, how about a solar dehydrator?

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooking/cooking.htm

[traderrob6]

BS. I’ve been in the meat business for 30+ years and you can quote me, it’s all hype, ain’t gonna happen.

[dfwgator]

"Pork Bellies! I have a hunch something exciting is going to happen in the pork belly market this morning."

[count-your-change]

I can see some store being robbed. The booze was left, the cash register wasn’t touched but all the bacon was gone.

[IMR 4350]

I don't know how pork would do drying,don't know why you couldn't just make sure you cook it before eating it, but the other meat can be dried and eaten without cooking in most cases.

You might do a chili grind to make it dry faster and use a little cure on it just to make sure it doesn't spoil while drying if you don't have a controlled heat source for drying.

[melissa_in_ga]

As far as bacon goes, I’ve read that if you cook 1/2 the bacon, then cover the raw bacon in the resulting grease, it won’t go bad.

I don’t have confirmation of that, though. I do have a pressure canner, and plan to can many meats over the next few weeks.

[X-spurt]

A fair amount of wild hog is consumed, never hear of anyone getting Trichinosis. Would assume wild hog's diet being mostly non-human related would have lowered exposure to their picking up Trichinosis.

Do you have any link to contrary information regarding Trichinosis incidents?

[X-spurt]

My Grand Parents had a smoke house where they hung pork that was smoke cured and kept until consumed. Beef was canned as were vegetables and fruits.

[melissa_in_ga]

If it weren’t for the d*mned HOA, I’d have a smokehouse, a root cellar and a chicken coop. I may still do that...they can put a lien on my house for all I care. I’m not moving anytime soon.

[IMR 4350]

Smoke curing is an even lower temp than just plain drying.

Did they do a salt cure first to make ham or did they just smoke cure it?

[Alter Kaker]

Sort-of. I suspect demand for pork is even less elastic than supply. People have to eat regardless of the price and there’s only a limited ability of folks to cut back on consumption or switch to other sources of protein. Not a huge problem in the US, but I’m thinking it might be a bigger issue in parts of Asia and Latin America where pork is a dietary staple.

[McGarrett]

The author doesn’t know the hog/pork belly market. It’s quite common for wholesale bacon prices to reach an annual high in early August, then fall to annual lows in November. However, these folks are probably right in anticiapting much higher prices by next summer, since the summer surge in corn prices has almost surely caused a good bit of hog herd liquidation since late July. That’s just in time to cause a shortage of slaughter hogs next spring and summer. Actually, the USDA will release its quarterly Hogs & Pigs report concerning the hog population and outlook Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM CDT. We’ll know more then.

[treetopsandroofs]

Usually around $10 for a dozen at Walmart.

[X-spurt]

Being pretty young when they still did the smoking, but I think it was salted then smoked. Didn’t seem very important at the time to ask details.

[X-spurt]

Our HOA is us and 3 dogs, laying hens and one “temporarily” happy pig. If SHTF I will definately be putting up a smoke house.

By the way GrandMa’s smoke house was made of adobe and doubled as a cool cellar. Not sure about adobe in East Texas, but I have garden soil that gets hard as brick so might work.

[IMR 4350]

Sounds right.

Bet for some strange reason there just happened to always be ham for a sandwich when you got hungry.

[SeekAndFind]

Billy Ray: No thanks, guys, I already had breakfast this morning.

Mortimer Duke: This is not a *meal*, Valentine. We are here to TRY to explain to you what is we do here.

Randolph Duke: We are ‘commodities brokers’, William. Now, what are commodities? Commodities are agricultural products... like coffee that you had for breakfast... wheat, which is used to make bread... pork bellies, which is used to make bacon, which you might find in a ‘bacon and lettuce and tomato’ sandwich.

[Billy Ray turns and gives a long look at the camera]
Randolph Duke: Randolph
[continuing]

Randolph Duke: And then there are other commodities, like frozen orange juice... and GOLD. Though, of course, gold doesn’t grow on trees like oranges.
[chuckles]

Randolph Duke: Clear so far?

Billy Ray: [nodding, smiling] Yeah.

Randolph Duke: Good, William! Now, some of our clients are speculating that the price of gold will rise in the future. And we have other clients who are speculating that the price of gold will fall. They place their orders with us, and we buy or sell their gold for them.

Mortimer Duke: Tell him the good part.

Randolph Duke: The good part, William, is that, no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke get the commissions.

Mortimer Duke: Well? What do you think, Valentine?

Billy Ray: Sounds to me like you guys a couple of bookies.

Randolph Duke: [chuckling, patting Billy Ray on the back] I told you he’d understand.

[melissa_in_ga]

In GA we have rocks and clay. However, I do live on almost 2 acres of heavy woods butting up to the Chattahoochee River. I COULD put a smoke house/root cellar out where the “tennis neighbors” couldn’t see it.

[MrB]

A couple of pigs would love to forage around in those couple of acres of woods.

And the cool part is, they’ll clean up the underbrush for you and make it into a park.