Congress is back in session after the 4th of July Independence Day holiday break. But there are only 12 days on the legislative calendar for the month; there will be a break next week for the Republican nominating convention, and then Congress adjourns for the August recess on 2 August. Legislators will be back for September but adjourn again in early October before the November elections. This doesn’t bode well for completing any legislation, including the farm bill. Note that on 30 September, the current farm bill extension expires, as does the current government funding. Currently no appropriations for FY 2025 (which starts on 1 October) have been approved by Congress. The House has passed 4 of 12 appropriations bills,...
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...
From WPI Consulting
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.