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SPRING PRAIRIE — When Scott Wilson couldn’t afford to feed his young hogs, he was left with one option — put them down.

Wilson, a Spring Prairie farmer whose land reaches in to the Town of Burlington, had to kill close to 1,000 piglets that no one wanted to buy. They were too expensive to bring to market.

A few weeks back, Wilson, a fifth-generation farmer whose land straddles the border of Racine and Walworth counties, realized he had overproduced and was looking at $8 per bushel corn and 50 cent per pound hogs.

It was a losing proposition.

“I’m going broke one way or the other,” said Wilson, who has raised hogs for decades. “This is going to be an issue at the grocery store pretty soon.”

Wilson, whose father Ralph started raising hogs, owns Wilson Farm Meats, a retail store in Elkhorn, where he sells meat from the hogs he raises.

His tale caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, who represents Wilson in Congress.

Ryan, who holds a roundtable discussion twice a year with farmers in Elkhorn, thought Wilson’s story was a good illustration of the problems with the American economy. Wilson sits on Ryan’s agricultural advisory board.

So Ryan wanted Wilson to be a guest on the CNBC chat show “Squawk Box,” where policy wonks from Capitol Hill and the surrounding environs debate “macro statistics” far removed from the heartland, where animal farmers like Wilson struggle with the rising price of things like corn.

Ryan co-hosted the show on July 14.

“The point I wanted to make was, look at all these big statistics, but look at this hog farmer in Wisconsin. These Wall Street guys who watch “Squawk Box” don’t know this. I was amazed when he told me this,” Ryan said.

“I wanted to tell Scott’s story. It’s a great anecdote about what is going on in the larger economy. These stories matter. I think their informative.”

Ryan was set to co-host an episode of “Squawk Box” last week, where he planned to discuss Wilson’s story with the farmer and an economist, Ryan said.

Then the story about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac going bust, and a possible bailout of the two finance companies, broke. Wilson was knocked out of the picture.

Ryan didn’t forget the anecdote. Ryan called Robert Fisher, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, he said, to tell him about the situation in which farmers like Wilson find themselves.

Pork producers have been in a very difficult position since September. That’s when the market price for hogs dropped and the cost of feed and other inputs increased, said Tammy Vaassen, director of operations for the Wisconsin Pork Association, a group that represents hog farmers throughout the state.

An increase in the number of hogs being produced helped drive down the price, she added.

Producers were losing about $40 to $50 per animal, which drained any equity they might have built in prior years, Vaassen said.

While exports of pork products from the United States have helped producers somewhat, it hasn’t been enough, Vaassen said. She said she hasn’t heard of any other hog farmers that have been forced to do what Wilson was forced to do.

“The only time when we would even be discussing this is when we are in a situation like we’re in today,” Vaassen said. “Things have not been this serious since I’ve been involved in the pork industry.”

Wisconsin isn’t a giant in pork production, but there are a few committed producers in the state, like Wilson, Vaassen said. Vaassen said pork producers in the state have raised about 800,000 animals in the last few years, putting it anywhere from number 20 to 25 in the ranking of hog producing states.

Ryan said he’s spoke with other hog farmers and they’re going through the same thing. They can’t afford to keep these piglets alive, because they know they’re going to lose their shirts, Ryan said.

“When you see a personal story like Scott Wilson’s, that gives you a sign of what is to come with pork prices, with food prices,” Ryan said.