Musik für die US-Landwirtschaft Russian aggression in eastern Europe has turned EU policy on its head and the latest evidence is German Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s suggestion over the weekend that Brussels and Washington should reinitiate negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This is music to U.S. farmers (Musik für die US-Landwirtschaft) but there are many hurdles to his suggestion, not the least that his Free Democratic Party (FDP) is the smallest component of a tripartite leadership in Germany. The FDP is uniquely pro free trade while many other parts of Europe are embracing increased protectionism (sovereignty) in the wake of the attack on Ukraine. The Greens and many othe...
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.