Friday, June 22, 2007

How Much Corn is Actually Represented in Meat Products?

Corn Represented in meat Cattle Food vs Fuel Food versus FuelA recent report by a leading agriculture group looked at the food input costs and came to some easy-to-understand numbers. It's worth reading the entire report (pdf), but here are some useful numbers when discussing the issue:
"Corn is the primary source of carbohydrate energy for livestock and poultry in the United States.

As such, higher corn prices are expected to have some impact on the cost of meat production. Meat producers consistently cite feed grains as the most important inputs in meat production. To gain a better understanding of how much corn is actually represented in meat products, it is interesting to examine the amount of corn required to produce one pound of each respective type of meat (this is commonly referred to as the “feed-to-weight” ratio).
  • There are 56 pounds of corn in a bushel. When corn is $3.50 per bushel, a pound of corn is worth 6.3 cents. At $4.00 per bushel, a pound of corn is worth 7.1 cents.
  • According to the Beef Checkoff, it takes 2.6 pounds of corn to produce one pound of beef, live weight (includes bone, fat, etc.). This equates to 18.6 cents worth of corn when corn is $4.00 per bushel.
  • The National Pork Board says it takes 3.6 pounds of corn to produce one pound of pork, live weight. This equates to 25.7 cents worth of corn when corn is $4.00 per bushel.
  • It takes 2.0 pounds of corn to produce one pound of chicken, live weight, according to the National Chicken Council. This equates to 14.3 cents worth of corn when corn is $4.00 per bushel."
Recently, a hog producer blogged about her own observations on food costs. Read about her HERE.

Source: National Corn Growers Association (pdf)

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2 comments:

Rescue852 said...

Appears that this article gives the price of corn at what the farmer is paid for it. I pay $10.00 per 50 pounds. This is twice what it was about 3 years ago, and much more than your figures. So my eggs, beef, and pork costs are up more than the article. Costs are also up on fertilzer - driving hay up - and thus the cost of beef.

Rodger Mansfield said...

While it's true that ferd input costs are higher, these costs do not always get passed on to consumers raising the price of the final item. And feed costs increases have clearly been shown to be a much smaller part of food cost increases compared to demand increases, energy and marketing costs.