Beef production is now forecast at 26.632 million pounds, an increase of 775 million pounds (+3 percent) from the January forecast. Before taking this number at face value, however, it’s important to consider how the USDA constructs its forecasts. If there is a significant change in market conditions, the USDA adjusts its fundamental forecast accordingly. In late November, the USDA announced a suspension of all cattle imports from Mexico due to the infestation of New World Screw Worm in Chiapas, along the Guatemalan border. As a result, the December forecast for 2025 beef production was revised downward from 26.347 million pounds to 25.732 million pounds, a 615-million-pound reduction. Now, with trade between the U.S. and Mexico poise...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.