HUTCHINSON, Minn. — At the McLeod County Fair they held a birthday party Thursday night for a 1200 pound pig. But that's not all they are celebrating in the swine barn.
Pork prices, depressed for two years, have been ramping up this summer, returning Minnesota's hog producers to profitability.
"Glad we hung on, glad we stuck with it," said hog farmer Rustin Kurth from his family's display at the fair. "A lot of people went through, where they had to liquidate, sell out, we lost a lot of hog farmers."
An oversupply of pigs followed by last year's swine flu panic drove down prices for Kurth's market-size hogs to $100 a piece. Today the same size pigs are fetching $160.
"We're averaging maybe 25 to 30 bucks a pig profit now, versus losing 25 to 30 a year ago," he said.
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