The U.S. soybean industry has long been a success story. The industry was a modest one prior to World War II but saw amazing growth after the war as consumers shifted to using vegoils instead of lard and tallow for cooking. Its growth also was driven by use of soymeal as the main protein source in swine and poultry feeds. This all was made possible by the invention and proliferation of solvent extraction facilities that allowed the efficient separation of soymeal and soyoil. At the same time U.S. demand for soymeal and soyoil was expanding in the U.S. it also was expanding in Europe, Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere. This allowed the U.S. soybean industry to develop robust export markets for soybeans, soymeal and soyoil and to be by...
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.