Big crops and low prices have been a fact of market life for so long that it is worth pointing out something of a change in the early weeks of 2017.Beginning with 2013/14, the U.S. and the rest of the world have enjoyed four years of generally favorable weather for field crops as farmers produced huge, often record-large volumes of wheat, corn and soybeans. All of this culminated for U.S. farmers with the massive corn and soybean crops harvested in 2016, a year when the country’s yield records were set for all three crops. World demand also expanded at a record pace during this same four-year period, although it did not keep up with the growth in production. The result is that world stocks have risen to record levels. While not setting reco...
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...