World Perspectives
livestock

Livestock Roundup: Policy Proposals Lagging the Cattle Cycle

Since COVID and the bottlenecks it created in livestock slaughter, populism has been the hallmark of agriculture policy debates on Capitol Hill, especially livestock, and even more so the cattle market. With the beginning of the 2023 farm bill process, that hasn’t slowed, even though the cattle cycle and the economics of the livestock and meat sectors have shifted dramatically.  There have been four straight years of cattle herd liquidation, and with drought the highest cow slaughter ever, the highest heifer slaughter in two decades, and a bow wave of record beef production (2022 was the fourth consecutive record). And that demand resulted in high cattle prices. Cattle prices will remain high based on tight supplies. The culling...

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livestock

Livestock Round Up: Cattle Inventory Report

USDA’s semi-annual cattle report was issued today. The inventory of all cattle and calves in the U.S. as of 1 January was 86,155,300 head, slightly below—or about 316,900 head fewer than—the 86,472,200 head on 1 January 2025.  This year showed the seventh consecutive ann...

livestock

Cracking the Egg Price Mystery

Egg prices have been through a volatile 18 months, rallying sharply in LH 2024 and into early 2025 as bird flu decimated the U.S. layer flock. In early 2025, the U.S. layer flock for table eggs specifically fell to at least a 10-year low, at 286.4 million birds, down about 16 percent from the 2...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 30 January)

WPI Grain Prices and Freight Rate App Note: you can also visit the app directly by clicking here. Supplemental Information The section below offers a concise view of the options available in the current version of the WPI FOB Price and Freight Rate app, along with a short “How To”...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Cattle Inventory Report

USDA’s semi-annual cattle report was issued today. The inventory of all cattle and calves in the U.S. as of 1 January was 86,155,300 head, slightly below—or about 316,900 head fewer than—the 86,472,200 head on 1 January 2025.  This year showed the seventh consecutive ann...

livestock

Cracking the Egg Price Mystery

Egg prices have been through a volatile 18 months, rallying sharply in LH 2024 and into early 2025 as bird flu decimated the U.S. layer flock. In early 2025, the U.S. layer flock for table eggs specifically fell to at least a 10-year low, at 286.4 million birds, down about 16 percent from the 2...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 30 January)

WPI Grain Prices and Freight Rate App Note: you can also visit the app directly by clicking here. Supplemental Information The section below offers a concise view of the options available in the current version of the WPI FOB Price and Freight Rate app, along with a short “How To”...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for January 16-22, 2026  Wheat: Net sales of 558,200 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 10 percent from the previous week, but up noticeably from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 378,800 MT were up 2 percent from the previous week and 19 percen...

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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.

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