CONTRACT FINISHING FOR NEW ENTRANTS IN PORK PRODUCTION

Laura L. Martin, Dale Rozeboom and Gerald Schwab

No 11597, Staff Paper Series from Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Abstract: The pork production industry is a far different industry today than it was fifty, twenty, or even five years ago. On diversified Midwestern farms during the mid-to-late 20th century, the swine enterprise was labeled "the mortgage lifter". The hogs added value to home-produced feedstuffs such as corn and increased the income from a given acreage base. As farm mechanization and technology rapidly developed, farms became larger and less diversified as livestock disappeared from many farmsteads. In this paper, we address the question whether swine units can be introduced to non-livestock farms via a coordinated agreement for the grower-finisher phase and make these farms more profitable. To do this, we first describe some of the changes that have taken place in the pork industry. Second, production contracts and grower payments are introduced. Next, we move on to issues of manure management and the value of manure to non-livestock farms. Finally, in the Appendix, financial analyses for sample contract finishing contracts are laid out to help farmers determine if contract finishing could benefit their farming operations.

Keywords: Livestock; Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34
Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/11597/files/sp97-15.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:midasp:11597

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.11597

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff Paper Series from Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().