It’s a Pork-Tastrophe in the Making! A-PORK-alypse!

Everybody stay calm. We’re aware of this latest crisis and we’re planning Porktober accordingly.

As you may have heard, The U.K.’s National Pig Association, an esteemed organization if ever there was one, is predicting a pork shortage in 2013.

The U.K.’s National Pig Association said the European Union’s pig herd is declining significantly as pig farmers have struggled to cope with feed costs that have been driven up by global drought. Sow herds are shrinking by between 9.6 percent in Poland to 1.3 percent in Germany.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Who cares about the EU’s pig problem? So what if herds are shrinking in Poland and Germany? I buy American pigs from American slaughterhouses.

But let me clarify here: They’re predicting a GLOBAL pork shortage.

According to the always subdued Daily Mail:

Next year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that the nation’s per-capita supply of pork will drop to its lowest level since 1975.

All the evidence predicts that come 2013, there will be far fewer pigs around to satisfy the nation’s appetite for those irresistibly salty, succulently fatty strips.

Let’s let that sink in for a minute – no BLTs. No biscuits and sausage gravy (I suppose you could just have biscuits and plain gravy, but really, what’s the point in that?). No chorizo and eggs. Basically, breakfast would become obsolete. And what kind of salad can you really eat if there are no Baco-bits (actually, Baco-bits aren’t made with real bacon, so you might be alright still eating a salad).

The point is, this is a very bad thing. The Washington Post notes:

Global food prices have risen to record levels in recent months, driven in part by a severe drought in the United States and Eastern Europe. More than half of all U.S. counties were declared primary disaster areas this growing season because of extreme dryness and heat, the Associated Press reported.

The price of corn and wheat rose by 25 percent from June to July of this year, and soybeans rose by 17 percent, according to the World Bank.

Even the Major League Eating organization has taken action on this important issue, suspending all bacon-eating contests.

“We cannot, in good conscience, allow [top ranked eater] Joey Chestnut to eat bacon during a global pork shortage,” Shea said in the release. “We estimate that Joey alone could eat 20 pounds of bacon in 10 minutes of competition.”

The release also says MLE is encouraging its competitors to avoid bacon in their daily meals.

The one exception to the no-bacon rule is a bacon-wrapped-scallop-eating contest, since they are “really delicious” and “mostly scallop anyway,” according to Shea.

Damn straight. There should definitely be a “really delicious” exemption for all food rationing.

With that in mind, I want to assure all Porktober participants (trademark pending. I’m not kidding. We’ve actually applied for a trademark on the term “Porktober.” No word yet on whether it’s been granted.) Anyway, do not worry about your Porktober consumption schedule. For now, at least, pork supplies are abundant, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s monthly cold storage report. Yes, that is a thing.

 Pork supplies are particularly abundant, a major reason hog prices have declined by about 20 percent in the last 90 days….. Hog slaughter, by contrast, was up 5 percent from a year ago due to a larger number of animals. Hog inventories have been at record levels this year.

So, we’ve started hoarding. Like Doomsday Preppers, we’re preparing for the A-Pork-alypse. We’ve already procured the sausages for the pigs-in-a-blanket and the bacon is on order. We’ve already given our butcher a heads up on our pig needs and he’s assured us we’ll all be alright. The rest is up to the pig gods.