With fall and colder weather coming, so does the threat of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) re-emerging as wild fowl start to migrate again. As we noted on 30 August, Another outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza was reported in California; that marks the 21st state to see HPAI. Turkeys were the most affected, with only about 68,000 to 69,000 broilers destroyed. The significance though, is that HPAI has always mostly disappeared in the hot weather; an outbreak in California in August is a surprise. This will put the industry on watch for a re-emergence this fall/winter as production is otherwise expected to ramp up. There have been 417 cases detected through August, with 85 percent of them occurring from Februa...
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.