While apple shipments to China pale in value and volume compared with other commodities, they are an important proxy for value goods as this fruit is a premium product versus China’s domestically-grown Fuji variety. It is also interesting to note that China has quickly broadened as a market for organics. Oilseeds Strong Feed Demand Continues to Drive Down Soymeal Inventories With demand from feed mills remaining robust (see pricing chart below), China’s estimated soymeal inventories fell even further last week. As of last Friday, they totaled 570,000 MT, a 50,000 MT decrease from the previous week and 220,000 MT lower than the same week a year ago. Among the surveyed regions, soymeal inventories declined in the north and increased in the...
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.