Camel’s Nose USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack appeared to discount Mexico’s plan to ban glyphosate and GMO corn by saying it would not affect U.S. feed corn being shipped south. However, the U.S. ships a certain amount of white corn to Mexico for human consumption and, more importantly, Mr. Vilsack’s agricultural constituency sees the Mexican proposal as the camel’s nose under the tent. After all, Mexican President López Obrador says the goal is self-sufficiency and consequently the ban is based on protectionism. It also violates the obligation to sound science and the USMCA included stronger language on biotechnology. The Secretary seemed to assure that the matter would come up under USMCA consultations, but Ameri...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...