Livestock Squeeze of Low Prices and High Feed Costs Plagues Hog Sector The latest data release from China’s Feed Industry Association indicates that the average price for hog feed has risen for six months in a row through the end of December. Expectations are that with corn prices remaining strong and soymeal seeing modest gains in January that cost pressures will last at least through the first quarter of this year. Market reports show that in January feed mills have pushed pricing on swine feedstuffs up by an average of RMB 25 to 200/MT ($3.92 to 31.40/MT). Meanwhile, producers keep responding to the higher input costs by raising heavier hogs, even though there was some downward movement in this trend in the early fall. The nation...
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.