Today was National Agriculture Trade Day, an effort to boost awareness about the benefits of trade to the sector. However, the milestone also sparked debate about the increasing U.S. agricultural trade deficit, and the advisability of the Trump tariff war. President Trump’s goal is said to be a more fair and equitable trading system for the U.S. The status quo is described as unfair and unsustainable. Implicit in that assessment is a criticism of past policies that placed the U.S. in the position of running huge trade deficits. But it is sectors like agriculture that are being hurt in the interim by efforts to rectify the situation. There is still great uncertainty about how the war is being conducted, its true aims, and w...
What You Need to Know Today: Iran warned that it will retaliate against the U.S. if American strikes target Iranian infrastructure, as President Trump has threatened to do next week if negotiations between the two nations do not resume. President Trump is scheduled to deliver a primetime addre...
Turkeys for Thanksgiving are typically placed this month. Turkey production has suffered from HPAI and other diseases for the past two years, and placements are still down overall. However, at more than 34 pounds per bird, overall production is being supported by heavier weights and increased p...
Key Takeaways: Continued domestic demand for soyoil in the U.S. will drive prices higher and create a firmer outlook for global soybean values and crush margins. U.S. soyoil prices are set to increase 13-16 percent over the next four months as the domestic demand expansion takes hold. Th...
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.