Dive Brief:
- An outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV) has killed around 1 million piglets across the U.S. since May 2013.
- The disease, which causes severe diarrhea in pigs and is particularly dangerous to piglets, could soon create a spike in pork prices.
- Thus far, the 1 million piglets killed by the disease is but a fraction of the 66 million pigs reported by the USDA in the U.S. in 2013, so the disease has yet to even impact prices at all.
Dive Insight:
Let's just get this out of the way: This disease sounds pretty nasty. Thankfully, it has no effect on other animals or on humans — aside from the potential impact to our wallets. Aside from the losses not yet reaching a point where they would impact the cost of a pig, things like low feed prices are also keeping those increases at bay. The large corn harvest from last year has made it easier for farmers to make fatter pigs and cut pork losses over the next year.
Here's hoping animal health experts can perfect a vaccine — they're working on it — before the epidemic creates a price jump.