Lean Hogs

Question 01

The Great Barn Boom

Methane / hog barn

Six thousand hogs rip a methane fart in a sealed barn. Cletus lights a Marlboro. Does the barn explode?

Question 02

The Iowa Hog Conga Line

Iowa concentration

Line up every hog in Iowa nose-to-tail and march them to Chicago. How far does the line stretch?

Question 03

Tar Heel, Every Two Seconds

Single-plant risk

Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant kills 30,000 hogs a day. How often does one come off the line?

Question 04

The Central Park Pile

ASF tail risk

China lost 225 million pigs to African Swine Fever. Pile them in Central Park. How tall is the stack?

Question 05

The Hog Corn Field

Hog-corn ratio

US hogs eat 1.3 billion bushels of corn a year. How many football fields of corn is that?

Question 06

The Manure Firehose

Iowa environmental cost

Iowa’s hogs produce 27 million gallons of manure a day. How many Olympic pools is that?

Question 07

The 1998 Bust

Vertical integration origin

December 1998 hog prices crashed to $8/cwt. How much did a mid-sized Iowa farm lose that year?

Question 08

Pigs Per Person

Global demand elasticity

The world has 778 million pigs and 8.1 billion people. What’s the ratio?

Question 09

The Gestation Calendar

295-day forward signal

A sow bred today. When do her offspring hit the packer floor?

Question 10

Farm Gate to Dinner Plate

Pork farm share

A retail pork chop sells for $5.50/lb. How much of each retail dollar reaches the farmer?

Question 11

The Daily Titanic

Q4 slaughter peak

Peak Q4 US hog slaughter is 500,000 head a day at 285 lb each. How much pork is that?