China's Agriculture Minister Han Changfu has announced government plans regarding future corn plantings that could have an impact on the country's soybean production. China’s Plan to Reduce Corn Area May Impact Soybean Production Chinese Agriculture Minister Han Changfu has indicated that the government plans to decrease corn plantings 9 percent to a total area of 33.3 million hectares (2.3 million acres) by 2020 in order to better balance supply and demand. It wants farmers to replace those plantings with more soybeans, silage crops and other commodities. China currently has as much as 240 MMT of corn in state reserves as a result of guaranteeing high prices for that crop over a number of years. According to the ag minister, however, it...
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.