Congress is in recess this week ahead of the Easter and Passover holidays, with much yet to do, including ending a partial shutdown and considering the “skinny” farm bill. Congress is scheduled to return on 13 April, though that may change, especially if the Homeland Security funding bill discussions progress and votes are required for potential passage of that bill. There are additional reports about a second reconciliation package or supplemental package that could address other priorities, like the war in Iran, voting rights, and changes to the tax structure. Here is a snapshot of the situation. There is still no agreement on the funding for the Homeland Security appropriations bill. This is despite an effort last week...
What You Need to Know Today: The G7 agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude oil and fuel reserves over four months, with a substantial diesel release front-loaded into the first 20 days. The announcement initially pushed crude oil lower on Friday, although it later recovered a portion o...
In a recent social media post, R-CALF unveiled its latest cattle market plan: “contracts that bind producers before establishing a base price, then tie that price to future negotiated cash transactions, should be prohibited.” That proposal aligns with recent legislation by Represent...
Key Takeaways: The recent pearl-clutching from parts of the beef industry regarding the loss of the daily Kansas fed cattle negotiated trade pricing report is overwrought and ignores the fact that the direction was readily apparent. The shift away from negotiated trade has been well docu...
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.