The lame duck session of Congress continues to work on a funding bill to meet the 11 December deadline when the current continuing resolution expires. Moreover, it appears that a bipartisan effort at another round of COVID relief could also be a part of the deal. A group of lawmakers from both chambers and both parties released a draft of a $908 billion aid package that is a compromise between the House’s $3 trillion HEROES Act, which it has already passed, and the Senate’s preference for a $500 billion package. The proposal has been endorsed by the House Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 50 members that has been pushing a $1.5 trillion compromise bill since September when it became clear the House bill would die in...
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.