Yesterday’s Planting Intentions and Grain Ending Stocks reports from USDA were market movers, but despite the effects of higher feed prices, there was also bullish news on the hog and pork front. First, as we reported last week, the quarterly hogs and pigs report showed smaller numbers across the board from the pre-pandemic 2020 December to February quarterly report. Last year there were records for total inventory, market hogs, December-to-February pig crop, and pigs saved per litter. Last week’s report was the first drop in total swine herd numbers (down 2 percent) from 1 March to 1 March since 2014. The reduction in the sow herd was the largest since 2009. The Cold Storage report showed pork was reported at 491...
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.