U.S. hog producers saw a mixed year in 2024 with early-year prices bringing poor profitability while the dramatic hog rally since the summer has lifted financial fortunes significantly. A major component of those rising prices was the unexpected surge in pork demand, which pushed the cutout to new seasonal highs this fall. Now, producers, packers, and pork buyers are wondering what 2025 will bring and how demand and prices will fare in the post-election environment. WPI has just completed an update to our long-term (one-year forward) outlook for the hog and pork markets. The major findings from this effort are that producers are likely to see strong prices for the coming year, and if crop prices do not rise significantly, strong profit...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. corn condition ratings took a surprise turn for the worse in Monday’s report, with 54 percent rated good/excellent (down 3 percent). Dry weather in the U.S. Wheat Belt is stalling planting and causing concerns for the 2027 crop, in turn boosting futures...
In a letter last week to President Trump, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), wrote that diesel prices are squeezing farmers’ margins. As Duvall wrote: Higher diesel expenses are hitting farmers at one of the most fuel-intensive times of the year —...
Beef packer margins improved to $222/head last week, up $26 from the prior week as the Choice cutout strengthened while fed cattle prices slipped lower. The cutout rose to $376/cwt while fed cattle fell to $220/cwt, strengthening packer returns. Margins remain exceptionally strong compared with...
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.