Drought Effect: Freezer Busting Inventories Because of the drought, drought-fueled corn and feed prices, and lost pasture, more beef and pork is being pushed into cold storage. Overall, red meat is at 1.031 billion pounds, up 15 percent in cold storage over 31 July 2011. Pork in cold storage is up a whopping 20 percent over last year, with loins and ribs at 32 percent and 52 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, pork production is up as well, which will add to the freezer supplies and pressure prices. It is not good for the sector to have a 52 percent increase in rib inventory in the middle of grilling season. Beef is up 10 percent over a year ago. Broiler storage is down, reflecting recent cut backs in production. Expect further cutbacks...
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
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.