Grandma’s locally-sourced holiday honey-baked ham has not been affected by the recent drought in the Midwest, and according to local butcher shop owners, may not at all.

The threat of higher prices was raised as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports intense heat and little rain the in Midwest this summer damaged corn and wheat harvests, raising the price of these major contributors to a pig’s diet.

With the increase of price of these crops comes an increased price of meat. Some farmers, in order to mitigate the increased cost, lowered the ration of food each pig received, which could lead to a decrease in the size of the pigs. These factors are cause for a nation-wide threat: the price and quality of pork may be compromised in the current marketplace.

It is the larger stores, those that source their products from bigger farms in the Midwest, which may see price fluctuations and even shortages of pork.

Safeway is one of those stores. The pork sold at these supermarkets is all sourced from the Midwest, and those pigs are all fed with corn grown from the Midwest. These will be the stores that will be affected by the drought that upset the growing season this year. Once the previous supply is used up, the prices could start to rise. However, a significant change in the price has yet to occur.

Whole Foods sources all of the pork sold in their branches from Homestead Natural Meats, located in Vernon, Texas. Butchers in those states have not seen any increase in price of meat, but they have started seeing pork belly meat shortages says a butcher at the Oakland Whole Foods who refused to be named.

Supplies of pork belly, the section of the pig from where bacon is cut, have begun to dwindle from the shelves. Due to lack of feed quality and quantity, the pigs simply aren’t getting as rotund, therefore, those bellies pigs are notorious for are not producing the same amount of bacon as before.

Locally-raised pork may not be affected. Pigs that have been raised by a farm within 150 miles of Berkeley, Calif., have seen no change in price or quality, and is highly doubted it will.

“Pasture-raised prices [of pork] do not follow conventionally raised prices,” explained Analisa Gosneo, a butcher at Café Rouge, in Berkeley, Calif.

Monica Rocchino, co-owner of The Local Butcher Shop, also located in Berkeley, said the pork they sell will not see any change in price either.

“Primarily, [pork] farmers produce is pasture-raised and the supplemental feed is grown on their farms,” Rocchino says. This means that they will get very little corn, if any, from farms grown in Midwestern states.

Yeyo’s Meat Super Carniceria, a Hayward meat market, has seen a recent 10 percent decrease in pork prices, says co-owners Veronica and Rogelio Castaneda, but have not seen any shortage of pork meat. Beef prices, however, are up about 10 percent. The Castaneda’s source the pork and beef sold from their market from Yosemite Meat Company, located in Modesto, Calif.

Butcher shops that source their meats from locally-based farms are not as vulnerable to quality or price fluctuations. The farmers charge a higher premium for their product that guarantees the customer will not pay more if there is a slight increase in feed costs.

Smaller farms are often closed systems, meaning they grow and mill their own supplemental feed. In areas around the Bay, this is a benefit because the farms are not as susceptible to problems that the rest of the country could face, like drought.

But not all butchers who buy meat from the Midwest are worried. Phil Boardman, a butcher of Piedmont Grocer, located in Oakland, claims “a lot has to do with media.”

Boardman says he hasn’t seen any price fluctuation, or heard of any possible shortages that could affect the business of the meat market. Piedmont Grocer sources their pork from Iowa, and none of the sources of the meat has changed, or threatened to change.