Cow-calf margins hit all-time record highs in 2025 as the industry benefited from the downstream impacts of record-breaking beef demand and the smallest beef cattle herd in decades. As WPI readers will know well, the resulting supply crunch boosted cattle prices across the production landscape to all-time highs. These record prices, coupled with relatively inexpensive feed and other cost levels, resulted in record profits. For 2025, WPI’s models estimate the average Southern Plains cow-calf operation received about $992/cow-unit above total costs last year, breaking the prior record set in 2014 ($526/cow-unit). On an inflation-adjusted basis (2010 dollars), this year’s profits would equate to $693/cow-unit, about 50 percen...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Infrastructure investment due diligence
On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.