Russia and the Price of Bacon

No doubt my view of international trade from here at the kitchen table is more than slightly simplistic. 

However, I was just reading a Meatingplace article about how the Russian ban on food imports from the EU (and just about everywhere else on earth...wonder what that will do for food prices for folks living under the sign of the bear???) is going to increase competition with the USA for Asian pork markets. 

Lately our pork has been a hot commodity in places like China where they don't do quite as good a job of raising it as we do.

Now, what with porcine viral diarrhea decimating piglets on our hog farms, and pork being a kind of dicey business to be in in the first place, I wish our farmers well, and hope this doesn't hurt them too badly. Having been in the dairy business almost all my life, I am familiar with how over-supply, even manufactured oversupply, fomented by counting the same milk twice and all, can cripple an industry.

However, maybe, the price of bacon will drop a dime or two.

And yes it rained again yesterday, despite it being sunny and nice nearly all day. Six times at my last count, although it could have been seven. Friends to the west of us said that it has rained every day for ten days... and they said that a couple of days ago. Makes putting in baled hay utterly impossible.  Worst of it is, twenty miles from here they haven't had a drop and are putting up hay like it was summer or something.

And BTW, if you see our man Jade Schultz, wish him a Happy Birthday!