World Perspectives
livestock

Cow/Calf Producers Finish Volatile 2020 in the Red

2020 was a year of unprecedented volatility in ag markets and life in general, and the cow/calf sector did not escape this pattern. Rising feed costs through the fall have pressured estimated returns to cow/calf operations while weakness in cull cow prices has similarly depressed revenue opportunities. Fortunately, moderate strength in feeder cattle/calf prices has helped offset some of the higher feed costs. WPI’s current forecast is that the “average” cow/calf operation in the southern Plains lost $8.38/cow unit on calves sold this year, a $16 improvement from last month’s estimate but below our July forecast of -$1.94/cow unit. 

Cow/calf producers faced a challenging year starting with the spring COVID-19...

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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.

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