Kenya will begin a two-season GM maize testing program in October. The hope is that the biotech variety will be found to be superior to the current maize stocks and that GM seed could be commercially available by 2018. Meanwhile, another initiative is being funded by the Gates Foundation. Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the arrest of 13 individuals in connection with the investigation into fraudulent dealings related to the government’s local wheat purchases. The arrests are for 15 days only and intended to allow the investigation to proceed further. The public prosecutor has said that EGP 621 million ($70 million) had been paid for wheat that was not received. These arrests are i...
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.