USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the March 1 Hogs & Pigs Report on March 26, 2020. All hogs and pigs totaled 77.6 million head, up 4.0% from the prior year making this the highest amount ever recorded. Pre-report estimates had all hogs and pigs slated to increase 3.4%. Hogs kept for breeding increased marginally (0.4%) to 6.4 million head. Interestingly, industry estimates were expecting a 1.4% increase.

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) releases weekly export sales data on shipments of beef and pork muscle cuts. This data is lagged about a week, but it provides a glimpse of potential exports for the month, which is critical information given official statistics for March will not be available until early May. Focusing on pork, weekly exports have been averaging nearly 42,000 metric tons (MT) for the first twelve weeks of the year, this is compared to a weekly average of about 31,000 MT for all of 2019.

USDA NASS released the February data for cold storage this week. Beef cuts jumped 20% year over year while boneless beef climbed 3%. Pork too climbed above year ago, up 7%. Bellies, loins, and bone-in picnics were all more than 25% higher than a year ago. Smaller gains in butts, trimmings, variety meats and unclassified pork all gained more than 5%.  Very few pork products show inventories below a year ago; spare ribs and hams being the exceptions. Lamb and mutton, also built stocks last month, climbing 7% above 2019, and 3% higher than last month.