Fixing Farm Supports The best defense is an offense, and China and India are demanding that the rich countries reduce their farm support payments. The demand is rather rich given that producer support estimates (PSEs) have fallen in the rich countries at the same time they’ve skyrocketed in China and most likely in India as well. According to the OECD, the PSE for the EU has fallen 47 percent over the past 20 years, while the comparatively smaller U.S. PSE has dropped 20 percent. By contrast, as China has grown richer, it has increased its PSE by 580 percent over the same period. The OECD argues that agricultural support policies are poorly aligned with defined objectives. Notably, U.S. farmers believe the farm bill is strongly link...
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.