World Perspectives

Deep Bench to Fight RFK; China Market Risk; Thankless Job

Deep Bench to Fight RFKBeing the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is usually a pretty good job. It involves doling out billions of dollars, the constituency is dominated by courteous country people, and controversies tend to be minor. The person serving the longest in any Cabinet position was James “Tama Jim” Wilson at USDA for 16 years. Current USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack will have served in the position for 12 years. Henry A. Wallace served as USDA chief for eight years before being elevated to Vice President. Officially, the position is mid-tier in the presidential line of succession. But it is technically oriented, and the weakest secretaries have been those ill-suited to the job. Per Dave Juday’s discussion of who might be the next US...

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Livestock Roundup: Dairy Herd

The U.S. dairy herd in 2025 expanded at the fastest pace since the 1950s and reached a level that has not occurred since the early 1990s. Based on the USDA monthly milk production report for December, the milk cow herd totaled 9.567 million head, up from the prior month and 212,000 head from a...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for January 23-29, 2026 Wheat: Net sales of 373,900 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 33 percent from the previous week, but up 3 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 403,800 MT were up 7 percent from the previous week and 32 percent from...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further, with estimated net losses widening to -$233/head. While boxed beef values continued to firm, gains were outpaced by higher fed cattle prices, pressuring gross margins despite stable carcass weights and drop values. Packer profitability remains well below se...

livestock

Livestock Roundup: Dairy Herd

The U.S. dairy herd in 2025 expanded at the fastest pace since the 1950s and reached a level that has not occurred since the early 1990s. Based on the USDA monthly milk production report for December, the milk cow herd totaled 9.567 million head, up from the prior month and 212,000 head from a...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for January 23-29, 2026 Wheat: Net sales of 373,900 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 33 percent from the previous week, but up 3 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 403,800 MT were up 7 percent from the previous week and 32 percent from...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further, with estimated net losses widening to -$233/head. While boxed beef values continued to firm, gains were outpaced by higher fed cattle prices, pressuring gross margins despite stable carcass weights and drop values. Packer profitability remains well below se...

Herrington Becomes President of World Perspectives, Inc.

Washington, DC—World Perspectives, Inc. (WPI) is a leading agricultural market analysis and consulting firm making a leadership transition marking an important milestone in the firm’s development. After years of distinguished service as President & CEO, Gary Blumenthal has stepp...

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From WPI Consulting

Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming

WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.

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