With China importing over 44 percent of the world’s traded pork and at least 13 percent of its traded corn, knowing the size of the hog herd is critical to knowing supply and demand. The USDA/FAS attaché in China has posted a number closer to the official Chinese number, but USDA in Washington has a much smaller calculation. Rabobank’s latest number splits the difference. Rabobank says the herd is 10 to 15 percent larger than a year ago after experiencing 3 – 5 percent monthly declines since December due to a relatively smaller resurgence in Africa Swine Fever (ASF). The accuracy of estimates is not made any easier by Chinese policy pronouncements seemingly contradicted by domestic prices. Soymeal prices have softe...
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...
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...
Let’s return briefly to the fake meat hype cycle, now sitting somewhere in a dusty corner of your mind, not entirely forgotten. What happened to all those products, known as plant-based alternative proteins? They were supposed to be as good as real meat—cheaper, more environmentally...
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.