Livestock Shedding Pounds? Hog producers have been caught in a whipsaw of low hog prices due to tariffs, a dramatic rally (given the African swine fever situation in China that has since ebbed), and now rising feed costs due to the uncertain planting situation. In short, corn prices are likely to put a squeeze on hog producers, and market weight is one of the variables that is most under feeders’ control in the short run. Slaughter weights are still running at 287 pounds. Given a projected increase of 4.4 percent in pork production for the second half of 2019, an across-the-board drop of 4 pounds in average slaughter weight could reduce supplies by about 1.4 percent by bringing production down to about 13.74 billion pounds for that...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.