Pigs

Production Costs Margin over feed

By Michael Martin, Teagasc, Athenry

21 April 2007 : At the end of each year many producers like to look back and compare returns and herd performance with previous years.

Since 1984 Teagasc pig advisers have monitored pig and pig feed prices on a representative sample of farms throughout the country on a monthly basis.

The pig price is the price for pigs delivered to the slaughter plant. The feed price is for purchased compound feed.

This has provided accurate and invaluable information on trends in both pig and feed prices. The information is also useful for financial planning purposes.

The data is also used to calculate the Margin over Feed Cost per kg dead weight each month based on average levels of technical efficiency.

These efficiency levels are established from the annual performance reports of herd participating in Pigsys.

Trends

Taking five year periods the margin over feed has been quite consistent except for 1997-2001 when there were serious problems in 1999.

The margin left to cover all non-feed costs is likely to be about 50c per kg deadweight on average.

Essentially this has not increased over the 15 years but these costs have increased.

Do you know what your non-feed costs per kg are?

	Period	92-96	97-01	02-06
Average Pig Price c/kg dead	142	127	135
Feed Cost c/kg dead	92	82	83
Margin over Feed c/kg dead	50	46	52