Pig farmers have lost an average $23 on each hog sent to market since the crisis began in fall 2007, or a total of $5.3 billion, says Steve Meyer of Paragon Economics. Losses peaked at about $43 in August. Thousands of the USA's 67,000 hog farms will shut down before the crunch likely ends in mid-2010, says Ronald Plain, economics professor at University of Missouri.

Consumers are benefiting only modestly. Retail pork prices fell 3.9% in September vs. a year ago, but farm prices plunged 29%, Plain says. A shift to eating at home in the recession helped boost grocery sales, he says.

The downturn marks an abrupt turn in fortune. Pork industry sales and profits soared earlier this decade, driven by an export surge, especially to fast-growing Asian markets. Exports accounted for 24% of pork sales in 2008, up from 8.5% in 2002. The boom was partly the result of a respiratory disease in China's pig herd that forced that country to boost imports.

But the industry has been buffeted by one economic blow after another. In late 2007 and 2008, prices for corn, pigs' main feedstock, jumped from $2.50 per bushel to about $4 due to government mandates for increased production of corn-based ethanol. In late 2008, the recession dampened both U.S. pork demand and exports. About the same time, Chinese herds were recovering, lessening their dependence on imports. Farm pig prices fell from a high of 68 cents a pound in 2007 to as low as 30 cents, Clarkson says. Hog farmers need about 50 cents a pound to break even.