As WPI reported yesterday, the total supply of beef per capita is up this year over last based on imports and heavier slaughter weights; both are related to the pace of beef cow salughter. A bigger percent of fed cattle in the mix has resulted in heavier slaughter weights, as well as feeder cattle being fed longer to heavier weights. Plus, with cow slaughter down this year after two years of culling, imports of lean trim are up.Next week, the September monthly cow slaughter totals will be released, but through August, beef cow slaughter is down 15.7 percent from last year, and 26.9 percent from 2022, and 9.6 percent from the 2018-2021 average after two years of culling from drought impact. Based on the historical averages, cow slaughter cou...
There was heavy volume exiting soybeans, which dragged down the broader market today. The lack of a specific Chinese buying commitment for soybeans undermined speculators who had placed bets on state-directed trade. But even the Chinese do not totally ignore market fundamentals. They may still...
On Tuesday, 12 May, WPI reported on an Executive Order being prepared by the Trump Administration to suspend tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on beef from all exporters for 200 days as a means of addressing high beef prices in the United States. After considerable pushback from cattle producer groups,...
WPI has officially launched Transportation Perspectives as a standalone weekly report separate from our Ag Perspectives articles and analysis. Current Ag Perspectives subscribers will have gratis access to the report through 16 April 2026. Please email us or subscribe online after this date to...
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.