As previewed yesterday, the Administration announced the details of the $16 billion COVID-19 relief direct payment program – the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Sign up will start on 26 May and the checks will start hitting mailboxes within about two weeks. The payment limit is $250,000 per producer – no per commodity limit. If there are two or three active partners, the limits are $500,000 and $750,000 respectively. USDA will make an initial payment of 80 percent of an eligible 2020 CFAP participant’s calculated payment. The initial payments are meant to provide quick cash flow assistance to those eligible and are at 80 percent to ensure that total payments do not exceed the $16 billion budget. ...
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.