Chinese agricultural analysis firm JCI notes that the country’s major livestock production fell 10.2 percent last year (-21 percent for pork), and yet feed production was down just 4.4 percent. There are several factors behind these numbers including a ban on feeding slop to pigs, the increase in average slaughter weight, the rise in poultry production and animals slaughtered for disease control nonetheless were fed to some degree. However, the more notable observation going forward is the implication of these changes on future feed demand. China’s ban on low-grade feed is likely to continue, as is its conversion to industrial production methods. If China fattened livestock in a manner similar to the U.S., feed disappearance wo...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.