As WPI has reported several times, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the key issue for the next farm bill, much like it was in 2014. As we noted on 17 February, the 2014 farm bill started as the 2012 farm bill - introduced in April 2012. It was not completed until February 2014, 22 months later. Much of the delay was caused by debates over SNAP funding and work restrictions. In July of 2013, the House passed a “farm only” farm bill by a vote of 216 to 208, stripping the bill of the nutrition title just to get a farm bill completed. The nutrition title was put back in during the conference with the Senate. From that experience most farm and commodity groups oppose having a farm program only farm bill, but t...
What You Need to Know Today: Markets got a surprise with a corn yield of 181.2 bushels/acre in the October WASDE, above the average estimate of 177.6 bushels/acre and up from USDA’s September estimate of 178.5 bushels/acre. Although stronger demand is expected to absorb some of the addit...
Key Takeaways: On Friday afternoon, President Trump announced that Russia will “immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” to the United States. The deal, typical of this administration, is light on details but promises an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 m...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts slightly while forecasting a slight increase in broiler production. Beef is now projected at 24.802 billion pounds, 75 million pounds less than in September. Cow slaughter is expected to be up; however, this will be offset by lower ste...
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.