Geopolitical Strife U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised some after she went to Taiwan despite China’s warning that it would cause a military confrontation. Is she smartly calling China’s bluff, or trying everything possible to make her Party look strong ahead of mid-term elections? China has reacted by banning food imports from Taiwan, and some say it is up to Xi Jinping whether this becomes a crisis or not. His country may not be in the best position to endure a sanctions-filled fight with the U.S. Then again, GDP is not as important to China as national will and honor. For both sides, cooperation is a more economically efficient path toward gains, whereas competition still requires a degree of cooperation for suc...
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.