In the Ag sector it's always important to know what's happening with the competition and where their product is going.

Trends are looking good for US pork exports, although demand differs by export destination.

Tyler Fulton, director of risk management with hams marketing services, says while China showed really robust increases in pork imports from the US, Mexico showed a nine per cent reduction.

Fulton says Mexico is a bigger and more consistent player in purchasing from the US, although increases from China were a good sign for pork exports.

"Overall though because of the big jump in china we did see an improvement, were running at levels probably that are some of the best that we've seen in over the last year but still far under what we saw for example three or four years ago," he said.

Fulton says the recent general depreciation in the US dollar has made American exports more competitive on the world market.

Fulton says market analysts expected hog numbers for April and may to be two to three per cent lower than last year due to the anticipated effects from the faulty extender on last fall's pig crop.

Fulton says production right now is actually two to three per cent higher than last year.

"So either the issue was blown way out of proportion, or we've got a higher production level that even with the reduction in litter sizes. The increase of the total number of the breading heard was enough to offset that decline," he said.

Fulton says it will probably take a few months to figure the issue out, but he thinks it's interesting that numbers are much more abundant than what was expected even two months ago.