The pig production business has always had its ups and downs but developments over the last few years have resulted in the structuralization of increased levels of price and financial risk. By structuralization, I mean that these factors are now regular, recurring added risks that are no longer random, isolated events which no risk management process can adequately predict or mitigate effectively. The factors include the predicted and now realized reduction in the average level of the stocks-to-use ratios for corn and soybeans placing feed prices in a continuing, annual, heightened state of price risk volatility. Bob Wisner, retired crop extension professor from Iowa State University told World Pork Expo attendees that we will end up the soybean year with as little as 2.2 weeks of the supply remaining. The cold, rainy corn belt conditions which delayed the corn planting period in the U.S.
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