World Perspectives
livestock

Hog Wild Pork Markets

After a few weeks out of the market, China purchased 77,700 MT of U.S. pork last week. That makes it the number three destination (behind Mexico and Korea) for pork exports in 2019. Export sales totaled 90,700 MT, including to Korea (3,600 MT), Chile (2,900 MT), Japan (2,200 MT), Australia (1,800 MT) and Canada (1,100). The news lifted the lean hog futures contracts across the board with the June contract opening at $99.45/cwt after bottoming out at $74.65/cwt as recently as 19 March. These levels haven’t been seen since 2014 and are up around 60 percent on the year. However, as WPI has cautioned, the trade uncertainty and lack of transparency on the African swine fever (ASF) issues in China have made the market a bit of a rollercoas...

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Cattle on Feed Report Shows Record Low Marketings

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.24/bushel, up $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.225/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.255/bushel, down $0.12 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $284/short ton, down $0.7 fro...

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From WPI Consulting

Forecasting developments in production agriculture

On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.

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