Given the demographic history of farming in the post-World War II era, the actual issue may not be the number of new young farmers coming into the business to replace the aging current primary operators. Instead, it may be what is happening to the second generation that is on the farm as third operators.USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has been speaking on numerous occasions lately at various commodity/producer group meetings, in and outside of Washington, and also testifying on Capitol Hill about his department’s budget and operations. Many of his remarks have been focused on the accomplishment of the Obama administration, unsurprisingly, as well as the future challenges for U.S. agriculture and rural America. At the American Farm Bureau Federat...
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, and the latest retail sales data indicate that spending remains robust despite inflation. In September, total retail and food service sales rose more than 6 percent year-over-year, with food service spending up 7 percent and...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
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.