Word is that USDA is considering allowing cotton farmers access to not just the subsidy program the industry demanded as their key support in the 2014 Farm Bill, the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX), but also to the one crafted for grain and oilseed farmers. Renegotiation of TPP U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) sealed the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with his cautionary message to the Obama administration against sending the agreement to Capitol Hill before the November 2016 election. The situation mimics trade agreements negotiated at the end of prior administrations that were left stranded until uncensored successors took office. However, the political problems with TPP are largely self-inflic...
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.