Competitive Advantage DimSum reports how scaled up techo-farms currently represent only 20 percent of Chinese agricultural production but much the way that scaling up pig farms created efficiencies, eventually other farms will follow if land laws get fixed. By contrast, scaled up farms in capitalist Europe and the U.S. get vilified. Worse, Pitchfork data shows that venture capital investment in foodtech startups is only one-third the level of last year. The decline is hitting everything from farm robots to fertilizer alternatives. Strife and Opportunity Forty-five percent of respondents to WPI’s last online survey feared that geopolitical strife will have modest impact on agricultural trade. However, a combined 45 percent ans...
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.