Cow/calf operations in the southern Plains and across the U.S. are facing sharply negative production margins. WPI’s latest research suggests the average operation will lose $100/cow unit this year as rising feed costs are juxtaposed against stagnant or falling revenues. After spiking precipitously during 2014 and 2015 as the market faced tight cattle supplies, feeder cattle prices have fallen 50 percent from their highs. More recently, the spring 2019 bear trend in feeder cattle and live cattle futures has pressured cash feeder cattle prices even lower. Consequently, WPI’s revenue forecasts for the sale of calves and feeder cattle (the summation of present fall futures prices and the expected cash basis) are down 7 percent ver...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.