The U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Genetically Engineered Crops held its first of many planned public input sessions to build background for a planned report entitled, "Past Experience and Future Prospects." Trade Policy Ironies A strange irony in Washington is that President Obama's trade agenda (e.g. TTIP and TPA) may need a Republican win in November. His political party's core voting block of organized labor and environmental groups have been threatening pro-trade Democrats and they've just sent a letter arguing against the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) needed to move trade agreements through the Congress. By contrast, Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced that if Republicans win control of the Senate in a few week...
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.