Erroneous Focus The progressive left is emphasizing their dislike for the choice of Tom Vilsack for USDA secretary. Arguing he is too cozy with Big Ag and consequently anti-small farmer and he will do too little to fix the environment. This reflects the lack of proper focus by activists. The biggest problem in the food system is not at the production level but with consumption. If social activists were concerned about their fellow human beings, they would turn their attention toward fixing the people doing the buying instead of those doing the growing. Americans on average over-consume calories by 86 percent. It is easier to blame Big Ag but McDonald’s would not exist if customers did not demand convenient and inexpensive food...
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.
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...