Moral-Based Trade III French President Emmanuel Macron sought to add to his own political strength yesterday by saying, “Let’s stop signing trade agreements with those who don’t comply with the Paris Agreement.” As has been noted in the past (see Ag Perspectives, 4 October 2017 and 14 March 2018), there are pitfalls in conditioning trade agreements on moral issues. For example, several EU countries do not recognize same sex marriage; Ireland still bans abortion; and France prohibits the wearing of religious headwear in public places. But the key question for Mssr. Macron regarding his proposed threshold is whether it is about merely being a signatory to the agreement or about reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs)...
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.