World Perspectives
livestock

More Upside than Downside

Cow/calf operations in the southern Plains and across the U.S. are facing sharply negative production margins. WPI’s latest research suggests the average operation will lose $100/cow unit this year as rising feed costs are juxtaposed against stagnant or falling revenues. After spiking precipitously during 2014 and 2015 as the market faced tight cattle supplies, feeder cattle prices have fallen 50 percent from their highs. More recently, the spring 2019 bear trend in feeder cattle and live cattle futures has pressured cash feeder cattle prices even lower. Consequently, WPI’s revenue forecasts for the sale of calves and feeder cattle (the summation of present fall futures prices and the expected cash basis) are down 7 percent ver...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 24 Corn closed at $4.2475/bushel, down $0.0075 from yesterday's close. Mar 25 Wheat closed at $5.5575/bushel, down $0.09 from yesterday's close. Jan 25 Soybeans closed at $9.8575/bushel, up $0.0225 from yesterday's close. Jan 25 Soymeal closed at $295.9/short ton, up $4.4 fro...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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