USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has weighed in on the topic of regulating cell-cultured meat. At the first of a potential series of joint USDA/FDA meetings on how to move forward with regulation, he said there should be “bright lines” drawn on the oversight and jurisdiction for each agency. The FDA regulates food manufacturing, and USDA regulates meat safety through the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). The meat industry jealously guards the role of FSIS in the industry, and the advent of this new product blurs potential regulatory lines and raises questions about which agency would have authority over it. FSIS is responsible for meat from “amendable species” (cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and horses) as well as poult...
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.
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...