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 turned positive for the first time since late last year as returns improved to $53/head last week. The turnaround was driven by a strong increase in the boxed beef cutout, which rose to $388.16/cwt, while fed cattle prices declined further on the week. The threat of the labo...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.54/bushel, down $0.1325 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.9725/bushel, down $0.165 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.5525/bushel, down $0.7 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $312.2/short ton, down $10...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Ags Sink on Oil Optimism, China Trade Worries; Fund Length Now a Liability

As quickly as it began, the U.S.-Iran war-fueled rally in commodity markets looks to be ending. Over the weekend and through Monday, several reports came in that highlighted political efforts to resume vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps most important was news that President T...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins turned positive for the first time since late last year as returns improved to $53/head last week. The turnaround was driven by a strong increase in the boxed beef cutout, which rose to $388.16/cwt, while fed cattle prices declined further on the week. The threat of the labo...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.54/bushel, down $0.1325 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.9725/bushel, down $0.165 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.5525/bushel, down $0.7 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $312.2/short ton, down $10...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Ags Sink on Oil Optimism, China Trade Worries; Fund Length Now a Liability

As quickly as it began, the U.S.-Iran war-fueled rally in commodity markets looks to be ending. Over the weekend and through Monday, several reports came in that highlighted political efforts to resume vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps most important was news that President T...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

CFTC COT Report Analysis

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds further expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the eighth straight week. Funds added 244,000 contracts (40 percent) to their all-ags net long position – a massive weekly increase - with buying in corn and the soy complex...

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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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