USDA released its quarterly Hogs and Pigs report, which showed the swine herd was still larger than a year ago despite a small drop during the December 2016-February 2017 quarter. There were two big drivers of the increase in market hog numbers.USDA released its quarterly Hogs and Pigs report, which showed the swine herd was still larger than a year ago despite a small drop during the December 2016-February 2017 quarter. Total inventory as of 1 March was 71 million head, up 4 percent from 1 March 2016 but down 1 percent from 1 December 2016; the total was a new record for the 1 March report. Other new records for 1 March inventories were also set in the following categories:Pig crop - 31.4 million headPigs saved per litter - 10.43Market hog...
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.