U.S. Policy Battle The two major parties are past the battle over President Biden’s age and should move on to the policy differences. Democrats will try to take their own problem of Biden’s age and apply it to Trump but it is likely to have less salience. Instead, the election will get down to a lot of name calling, and warnings that the other side poses some kind of imminent danger to the country. For many in industry, there is uncertainty. Trump will be better on taxes and regulation, but Kamala Harris will be better on stability, which is also important to business. Both the left and right are using business as a pinata as they fight for support from the working class. Trade policy will continue to be a wreck no matte...
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.
Key Takeaways: New Mexico’s Clean Transportation Fuel Program expands demand for low-carbon fuels and creates another market for renewable feedstocks, adding incremental pressure to already limited supplies of lower-carbon inputs. Growing competition for waste-based feedstocks such as an...
As WPI reported on 17 July, the recently passed budget reconciliation bill in the House Budget Committee includes $12 billion in emergency farm assistance. This would be the seventh of the past nine years with ad hoc farm payments (FY2018, FY2019, FY2020, FY2022, FY2023, FY2024, and potentially...
Beef packer margins improved to -$130/head last week, up $44 from the prior week as sharply lower fed cattle prices more than offset continued seasonal weakness in the Choice cutout. The cutout declined to $373/cwt while fed cattle prices fell to $238/cwt, allowing packer spreads to recover for...