Dave Juday noted in his report this morning that USDA’s Cattle on Feed report showed a smaller number than for the same month a year ago, something that hasn’t occurred in nearly three years. Not only was inventory down but so were placements, which means a reduced future supply. The reduction is counterintuitive considering the known need for more animal proteins in light of the loss in global pork volume due to African Swine Fever. However, the change comports with what has been a global change in the pace of beef production and consumption. Although both supply and demand are forecast to continue growing, the pace of growth is predicted to slow this year. According to USDA’s data, the growth in global beef demand this...
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.