There’s a good reason behind the expansion of the U.S. hog herd despite market averages that suggest producers were suffering double digit per-head losses during the last half of 2016, Ron Durre said last week at the Iowa Pork Congress. The most efficient producers are making money, he said, even in times of extreme volatility.

"Averages mean very little in the industry right now," said Durre, regional vice president of agribusiness for Farm Credit Services of Mid-America. "If you take (the profitable) people, they’re saying there’s nowhere else we can put capital and get this kind of return."

Last year,...