The Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on Wednesday, 19 April. As WPI has mentioned many times previously, SNAP is one of the most contentious issues in the farm bill and thus the largest potential stumbling block to its timely reauthorization. As reported on 17 February, Now, for the 2023 farm bill. Increased SNAP spending was driven by USDA’s re-evaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP), a provision of the 2018 farm bill. The TFP is the estimate of costs of appropriate and nutritious food for a family of 4 to eat a healthy diet on a budget. USDA completed its re-evaluation in 2021, six months before the requirement, so that it could...
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.