UK pig sector outperforms rivals

Scottish pig farmers have benefited from a remarkable run of weekly price increases for more than six months, according to the latest market commentary from Quality Meat Scotland (QMS).

Unlike the beef and lamb market, the pig sector in the UK saw no real disruption due to the Covid -19 outbreak which contrib - uted to significant volatility in the other red meat markets, particularly in the early stages of the pandemic.

However, Q MS senior economist Stuart Ashworth said that although the price increases were only modest, with farmgate prices lifted from 162.43 p/kgd wt at the beginning of January to 165.61 pin mid-July, the run had now been broken with falls each week for the past four weeks to see the price now stand at 163.5p. UK “Historically, production increases seasonally during July and continues to increase through to late autumn. Prices often reach a seasonal high in July and drift lower through to the end of the year,” said Ashwor th.he added that pig prices still remained nearly 7 per cent higher than a year ago – while the more volatile prices seen in the sheep and cattle sectors had seen increases of 18 per cent and 13 per cent over those experienced during the early days of the Covid outbreak.

But compared with the rest of Europe, where pig prices are 14 per cent back on the year, the UK sector was performing well said Ashworth who added that worst off of all were US producers, where disruption to slaughter capacity had seen prices fall 40 per cent.