Livestock Live Hog Price Reverses Course, Falls by More Than 4 Percent After beginning the month of March with a solid gain of more than two percent, the national average live hog price slumped by 4.3 percent last week. That translated into a week-on-week decline of RMB 1.26/kg ($.15/kg) or RMB .57/lb. ($.23/lb.). Despite modest declines in the price of soymeal and corn, lower wholesale prices for live hogs resulted in the average profit per head dipping by RMB 160/head ($24.62/head) or 9.1 percent. While the cash market was down last week, futures prices for the September and November contracts headed in the opposite direction. The September 2021 contract closed at RMB 28,750/MT ($4,423.08/MT), up RMB 465/MT ($71.54/MT) from the previous...
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...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.