The Biden Administration and others have already shown their animosity toward Big Ag. Heading into 2024 the hate may grow larger. The President’s reelection campaign, and that of the Democratic Party, is threatened by voter dissatisfaction with the economy. Specifically, they are upset about inflation. The government excludes food and energy from its core inflation or headline inflation calculations because the sectors are deemed volatile. This does not mean they are not felt by the citizenry. Indeed, they are the most directly experienced price changes. Gasoline prices have been dropping and so Big Oil may get a pass this coming year. Plus, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are a convenient foreign scapegoat. But food pr...
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.
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...