The European Commission and members of Parliament continue to debate how to handle the presence of "unauthorized" substances in organic food. It is very difficult to be pure, so how much impure should be tolerated? Having Your Cake and Eating It Too Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts lambasted the U.S. EPA for the large delay in announcing its mandate for ethanol production, which he proclaims is a vital asset in his state. Some conservative politicians are adherents of the ethanol mandate, while others see it as symbolic of Big Government overprescribing the economy. Governor Ricketts embraces ethanol but then decried the postponed mandate as "a typical example of big government that doesn't get it." Not Us, the Other Guys Yoichi Takita o...
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.