The NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament starts this week; that is typically a major driver of demand for chicken wings – with the other drivers New Years and the NFL Super Bowl. According to the National Chicken Council, Americans ate 1.45 billion wings during the February Super Bowl; with two wings per bird, that is 725 million birds, or about 7.7 percent of the total 2022 broiler slaughter of 9.43 billion birds. Consider that is almost a whole month’s slaughter of birds to produce the wings that are, incredibly, consumed in one day. Anyway, the market is different going into the college basketball tournament this year. High demand in 2021, and COVID related bottlenecks, were bullish for wing prices. D...
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
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.