USDA is initially forecasting Brazil’s and Argentina’s soybean harvested area in 2017 will increase by 900,000 hectares and 50,000 hectares, respectively. However, this is doubtful for several reasons. A Further Look at Soy Components in USDA May WASDE Report This month’s USDA WASDE report (released 10 May) surprised the trade with a large decrease in its U.S. 2015/16 soybean ending stocks projection. The drop from 445 million bushels to 400 million bushels resulted from increases of 35 million bushels in exports and 10 million bushels in domestic crush. While the forecast is still sizable, it is a clear signal that the trend is downward. If there is any significant shortfall in production this year in the U.S., China or India, world stoc...
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.