Mr Hog,Remember last week I was telling you about a hog shortage in Manila??Well down south where you are on that big island,they stopped shipping hogs to Manila,which caused a shortage and are driving up prices.Maybe good in the short term but if you upset the consumer,the consumer will just switch to another form of meat and there is no shortage of hogs in countries like China and Korea which produce alot of hogs and are always looking for new markets.If you study what the Slyfox posts for prices every week,one will start to notice that on some of the islands the prices never change week to week and month to month.Once the price of any food stuff is too expensive for the consumer to buy,the consumer will just buy something else.The white hog in the Philippines does not taste like the white hogs here.We have people showing up at our farm looking for the native hog because they do not like the taste of the white hog meat,a good business person who may see an opportunity would consider raising some natives just to supply the local markerplace.Back to basics,its your production cost(s) that will be the main factor,if you can make money or will you loose money.The customer is always king,if you upset the customer,the customer will just buy something else.My sister in law in Manila is telling us that there are more foreigners setting up farms there,the more of them setting up farms and producing livestock, the less need for livestock coming from down south.
Back to supply and demand,right now,supply and demand are steady but once there becomes an oversupply and lower demand,all hog producers better pray for a miracle.Think about it,everyday there are new people setting up some sort of hog operation,its a numbers game,at some point in the economy,things start to crash,we have seen this happen here in N.America.Once the feed becomes too expensive for most producers,the strongest ones will always survive and grown while the little guy will get eaten up by the big guy.You know what I am talking about.
Good Farming To You:
mikey