USDA released the December slaughter report yesterday, and with it cumulative data for the year. It is a good piece of preliminary data before the cattle inventory report that comes out next Friday. The inventory report will show estimates on cows and heifers retained for breeding, as well as the supply of feeder cattle outside of feedlots which make up the supply of cattle for placements in the beginning of 2024. In that regard, the slaughter report showed that the percent of females – cows and heifers – in the total annual slaughter volume dropped from a record high last year, but still remains the second largest percent since records started in 1986. And obviously, female slaughter remained well higher than the h...
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) enters its mandated six-year review on 1 July. The original intent of the review is outlined in Article 34.7, which obligates members to: Provide recommendations and decide on appropriate actions. Extend the USMCA for another 16 years and meet aga...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
Key Takeaways: Drought remains a major threat to global agricultural production, particularly in regions with limited rainfall and growing water scarcity. Commercially available drought-tolerant traits in corn, soybeans, and wheat have generally delivered modest yield improvements, limiting th...
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.