As we have discussed in the past, livestock production has little wiggle room to cope with the processing shutdowns and the demand destruction and volatility driven by food service and restaurant shutdowns. But, among the species, the one with the most opportunity – and it is still only enough room for a wiggle, not an on-off switch to cure the problem - is beef. Right now, circulating in the industry is a proposal for a Fed Cattle Set Aside program; the blueprint is based off a concept applied in Canada in the aftermath of BSE. The concept is straight forward: delay the marketing of cattle when slaughter capacity drops by switching a certain number of head from weight gain to maintenance diets. Canada is loo...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
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.