No Trade Bailout The Trump Administration’s $12 billion economic assistance package to farmers is being framed by the media as a “bailout” for the adverse impact of the President’s tariffs and trade wars. But there is no adverse impact in most instances. Wheat prices have come down 5 percent as the domestic stocks-to-use ratio rose but that relates to a global rise in wheat output with U.S. wheat exports holding surprisingly steady. The USDA projected season average price of corn has fallen 4.7 percent, but that is due to a huge increase in the size of the domestic crop. Critics can say trade wars have adversely impacted demand for U.S. corn but exports are up 12 percent. The big problem has been China buying Brazili...
What You Need to Know Today: Attacks between the U.S. and Iran intensified overnight and the U.S. Central Command reported that the U.S. naval blockade against Iran will begin at 3:00 PM CDT Tuesday. President Trump said the Strait of Hormuz is open to all shipping traffic, except Iran. In an...
Beef packer margins improved to -$172/head last week, up $31 from the prior week as sharply lower fed cattle prices more than offset a seasonal decline in the Choice cutout. The cutout fell to $382/cwt while fed cattle prices dropped to $248/cwt, allowing packers to recover some of the margin c...
Key Takeaways: Aquaculture is becoming increasingly important in meeting global seafood demand, gaining market share as wild-caught fisheries face production limitations. Superior feed conversion efficiency gives aquaculture a competitive advantage over traditional livestock production, with l...
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.