As previously reported, with the growth in ethanol production and production efficiency (see Ag Perspectives, 16 May) along with the mandated trend to greater mileage efficiency in the vehicle fleet (see Ag Perspectives, 30 May), the ethanol industry has made approval of E15 a priority in order to expand the fuel’s utilization. One of the strategies has been to pursue this legislatively; the core issue has been regulatory and up to the EPA.While E15 has been generally approved for use in the nation’s fuel supply since 2011 (for all automobiles of model year 2001 and newer), its volatility prevents usage in the summer months when there are clean air regulations that regulate fuels based on their evaporation rates (i.e., volatility). Volatili...
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.