World Perspectives
livestock

Bye Bye Black Sheep

New Zealand famously is a country with more sheep than people, but the competition is slipping in favor of humans. The problem is the economics of wool, which is no longer an economically supportive coproduct. Wool is less needed in a warming world with many man-made alternative fibers, and landowners make more money converting grasslands to carbon credit paying forests.   Wool production in New Zealand and in the rest of the world is in decline. While sheep meat output in New Zealand declines along with that of wool, global sheep meat has been expanding. However, it is falling behind the expansion rate of competing animal proteins such as poultry meat. Lamb consumption has always had a smaller group of fans, based on historic ge...

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livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further, with estimated net losses widening to -$233/head. While boxed beef values continued to firm, gains were outpaced by higher fed cattle prices, pressuring gross margins despite stable carcass weights and drop values. Packer profitability remains well below se...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Soybeans Surge as Trumps Says China in for Another 8 MMT

There are days in the commodity markets when it feels like nothing is happening in any market, and then there are days when it feels like everything is happening in every market. Today was one of the latter days.  The big headline in ag trade Wednesday was the soybean futures and broader s...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.295/bushel, up $0.01 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.2675/bushel, down $0.02 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $10.9225/bushel, up $0.265 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $296.2/short ton, up $4.3 from...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further, with estimated net losses widening to -$233/head. While boxed beef values continued to firm, gains were outpaced by higher fed cattle prices, pressuring gross margins despite stable carcass weights and drop values. Packer profitability remains well below se...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Soybeans Surge as Trumps Says China in for Another 8 MMT

There are days in the commodity markets when it feels like nothing is happening in any market, and then there are days when it feels like everything is happening in every market. Today was one of the latter days.  The big headline in ag trade Wednesday was the soybean futures and broader s...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.295/bushel, up $0.01 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.2675/bushel, down $0.02 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $10.9225/bushel, up $0.265 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $296.2/short ton, up $4.3 from...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Soyoil Rallies on Stocks, Tax Credits; Livestock Futures Gain on Cash Trade

Soyoil was the upside leader in the CBOT’s Tuesday trade after the USDA’s December soyoil stocks figure came in well below expectations. Additionally, the U.S. Treasury Department announced its proposal on the 45Z Clean Fuel tax credits, which were broadly friendly for ag interests...

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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.

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