The FAO is scheduled to issue an African Swine Fever (ASF) update on Thursday, 12 September and it is now likely to include the Philippines in the growing list of countries impacted by the disease. While most of the attention on this Thursday’s WASDE report from USDA will focus on its prognostications about U.S. grain and oilseed production, the agency should also reduce further its global swine production estimate. At this juncture, USDA is only recording a 10 percent decline in China’s swine production for 2019 as a result of the disease, with world production down just 4 percent. However, there are other estimates suggesting 30 percent is closer to the mark for China’s losses. Bloomberg says that 20 percent of Vietnam&...
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...
What You Need to Know Today: The conflict between the U.S. and Iran continues to escalate with the two sides exchanging attacks over the weekend. President Trump said Iran “will pay” for recent attacks that claimed the lives of U.S. troops stationed in Jordan. There are some signs...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.