After getting a slow start to the nomination process, Brooke Rollins is now the confirmed USDA Secretary, by virtue of a 72-28 confirmation vote last week. She’s just the second woman to head the agency as Ann Veneman of California was Secretary in 2001 during President George W. Bush's first term. On Friday, Rollins delivered opening remarks at the Department of Agriculture to more than 400 USDA employees, stakeholders, and Congressional members and staff as she was welcomed to her first full day on the job. "It is the honor of a lifetime to serve as the nation’s thirty-third Secretary of Agriculture ‒ and a privilege beyond description to have the trust of President Donald J. Trump, and the opportunity to adv...
What You Need to Know Today: Corn broke sharply lower after overnight headlines that U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian officials would meet for peace talks on 10 and 11 November. Mexico made its second large purchase of U.S. corn in as many days, bringing total purchases this week to just over 2 MM...
Key Takeaways: The EU's new deforestation regulations, taking effect 30 December 2026, could alter global soymeal trade through stricter traceability requirements and higher compliance costs. Brazil's complex supply chains are likely to complicate compliance with the new regulations, potential...
Beef packer margins improved to $89/head last week, up $53 from the prior week as declining fed cattle prices more than offset weaker beef cutout values. Fed cattle prices fell $3.35/cwt to $224/cwt while the Choice cutout declined $2.49/cwt to $366/cwt, improving packer profits. Despite the re...
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.