There’s been a lot of economic data released this week, most of it bearish and some of it unprecedented. Officially, the U.S. is in a recession, i.e. two quarters in a row of GDP contraction. Starting in the farm economy, the June Agricultural Prices Received Index (based on 2011) was 89.2. That was up 1 percent from May but down 4.9 percent from June 2019. Compared to May, producers received higher prices in June for milk and broilers and lower prices for hogs, eggs, and corn. In addition to prices, the indexes are influenced by the volume change of commodities that producers market. In June, there was increased monthly movement for wheat and decreased marketing of cattle. Milk prices were up on reduced supplies. The ma...
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.