The January 2019 soybean futures chart (see below) clearly shows the steep price decline that occurred after China imposed a 25 percent duty on soybean imports from the U.S., a retaliatory response in its trade dispute with the latter. The soybean trade issue was a hot topic across farm country during the midterm election, although it didn’t seem to hurt Republicans. Incumbent Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota) pounded on this in her campaign, but she still lost by a wide margin. It was interesting that no campaign ads mentioned the $1.65/bushel special government soybean payment. 85 cents of that has been authorized to be paid as soon as farmers confirm their 2018 soybean yield, and it is assumed that the remaining payment will...
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.