Macro Trends Value of China’s Agricultural Imports in September Higher than a Year Ago China’s agricultural imports in September were valued at $11.8 billion, up $1.14 billion (+10.7 percent) versus the same month last year but down $900 million (-7.1 percent) from this past August. The largest component of those imports was soybeans at $3.43 billion, up from $3.3 billion in September 2017 but down almost $4 billion against August 2018. On a volume basis, the total in September was 8 MMT, approximately the same as in that month a year ago but less than the 9.15 MMT in August. Over the previous twelve months (October 2017-September 2018), China imported 94 MMT of soybeans, up 500,000 MT (+0.5 percent) versus the previous same p...
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...
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.