U.S. hog cash markets showed signs of life last week.

Tyler Fulton is the director of risk management for Hams Marketing Services.

"The holiday period is typically one where there's more hogs than can actually be processed in these holiday shortened production weeks. We did fairly well moving through this time frame without big price concessions being made. As it sits right now, packers are still largely filling their plants, they are very profitable and so they'll have the incentive to continue to maintain at least the current cash trajectory, which is arguably slightly higher."

Fulton adds forward hog contract prices also saw a bit of support by virtue of lean hog futures moving higher.

He notes that African swine fever is getting worse by the day and there are heavy suspicions that the Chinese government is under reporting the extent of the impacts either by design or by limited ability.

The only question is whether U.S. pork is actually going to be used to fill supply gaps directly or indirectly.