Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is dead for now, and the sudden protectionist pivot in Washington has created a sigh of relief by those in Japanese agriculture. Trade Politics Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is dead for now, but trade negotiators still have full-time jobs with an agenda. Thus, the U.S. and Europe are set to exchange initial offers on tariff cuts for improved market access. President Obama vows that he will continue to press for Congress to pass TPA. However, his meetings this week with Democratic lawmakers made clear that organized labor is already mad at the administration over its unwillingness to give government subsidies to union-run health insurance, and members of Congress are not going to rub salt in labor's wounds...
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.