USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that his agency was “authorized” to make the second round of 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. The program set aside $14.5 billion to be made in three tranches. So far, $6.7 billion has been sent out under the 2019 version of MFP, with the balance to be reserved “if needed.” This second round would come in December, absent a deal with China, or even depending on the timing and terms of a deal with China, a potential third round could come in January. This is in addition to the $8.6 billion spent on MFP in 2018. Also, this week House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota) outlined in a letter to Perdue the shortcomings of MFP. Most of the iss...
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.