[skip navigation]
In a news story a few days ago in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a PETA official seemed to think she was winning the war to get people to abandon meat. In fact hog and cattle prices are going through the roof as the nation's prosperity keeps driving meat consumption upwards.
Just a year or two ago, the U.S. government was expanding its aid to hog farmers as pork prices plummeted, but now demand is so high that pork production is nearing record highs. Hog prices have doubled over the last year even with this high production.
As agricultural economist Rodney Jones told the Associated Press,
We are seeing some very strong indications that demand for all the meat products has improved relative to a year ago -- we are certainly seeing that in beef and we are seeing it in pork. We are able to move higher quantities at the retail counter at relatively higher price levels.
Source:
Consumers eating more meat; Beef, pork markets rebound, The Associated Press, December 13, 1999