Payment Limits: The COVID Food Assistance Program (CFAP) rule to provide direct payments to producers has been submitted by USDA to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for final review. That means it will be issued soon – though it was expected a couple of weeks ago. The one known aspect of the payments is that they will not be subject to the limits set by the 2018 farm bill of $125,000 per commodity or $250,000 per producer. It is not clear what the new caps will be, but they will be greater than the statutory caps that applied to the trade-related MFP payments. While Congress works on the next COVID-19 relief package, one of the proposals put forth would increase funding for the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to $68 milli...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets remain mixed with Capesize vessels seeing continued pressure from weaker demand while fixtures and rate strength gradually increases towards the smaller vessel classes. Tanker markets are pulling back from their recent highs as tonnage moves out of the Mid...
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...
Key Takeaways: Texas illustrates the assumptions underlying the 2025 FMMO reform; Idaho exposes their limitations. The Southwest order blend (roughly 27 percent Class I, 32 percent Class III and 31 percent Class IV) exposes Texas producers to every lever USDA adjusted, with a near-neutral proj...
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.