Us pork producers have been hit

The U. S. government is vaccinating the public against swine flu with unprecedented speed and efficiency, but this is of no use to pork producers, which are deeply affected by the swine flu epidemic. The unfounded fear that eating pork could lead to influenza A (H1N1) flu has left pig farms in the worst financial crisis ever.

The two-year downturn in the pig farming industry is mainly due to soaring feed costs and the global economic recession. But the excessive panic about H1N1 A virus accelerated the decline of pork exports in spring, and pork exports plummeted. Since the start of the industry crisis in the fall of 2007, the price of each pig on a pig farm has fallen by $23, or a total loss of $5.3 billion in industry output. Ronald Plaine, an economics professor at the University of Missouri, said thousands of 67000 pig farms in the United States could close before the expected end of the crisis in mid-2010. Consumers benefit from it is limited. Retail pork prices fell 3.9% in September from a year earlier, but pig prices on pig farms plummeted 29%.