The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Bush-era EPA rule that exempts livestock CAFOs from reporting air emissions, which could cost swine, poultry and dairy operations more than $6 million per year unless Congress acts.During the Bush administration, the EPA established a rule that exempted confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from reporting air pollution emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. This was based on the agency’s rationale that a federal response to the emissions was unlikely as it would usually be impractical and the CAFOs already reported to state authorities. However, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that rule last week as the result of a challenge by the Waterkeeper Alliance, a long-time CAFO foe...
What You Need to Know Today: China’s state-run COFCO, in statements on Tuesday, implied that U.S. corn exports were currently uneconomical but hinted that the Middle Kingdom would import 3.5 MMT of the feed grain this year, with 1 MMT likely sourced from the U.S. Another drone attack has...
Beef packer margins declined to $190/head last week, down $32 from the prior week as the Choice cutout weakened while fed cattle prices remained steady. The cutout fell $2.56/cwt to $373/cwt while fed cattle prices held near $220/cwt, narrowing packer spreads after several weeks of improvement...
What You Need to Know Today: USDA reports are delayed until Tuesday due to the federal holiday on Monday. Over the weekend, President Trump announced a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russia warmly welcomed and confirmed this ceasefire by conducting more strikes against Ukraine. Specific...
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.