Troubled Northern Beans There are nearly weekly reports of new U.S. soybean crushing plants being built to accommodate the policy-driven demand for renewable diesel. If not for the policy, it is unlikely that two new plants would be built in North Dakota where currently 90 percent of the beans are shipped out of state for processing. Once the new plants are completed in Casselton and Spiritwood, over half the state’s soybeans will be processed without leaving state lines. Even though these plants are being built in the top soybean producing counties in the state, they are not without risk. As this spring will attest, the climate change that has enabled a northward shift in soybean production is imperfect. The Dakotas ranked th...
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.