World Perspectives

Siloed Everywhere; U.S. Agriculture’s Future

Siloed Everywhere  International trade has become moral, geopolitical, and nationalistic, and so has local commerce. Global trade is now based on perceived and relative practices such as human rights, animal welfare, labor, environmental protection, etc. Don’t trade with autocrat regimes like China or Russia. There is Make in India, Buy America, food sovereignty, etc. This has crept down to state and local affairs. California dictates how hogs are produced in Iowa and bans state-funded travel to Texas. Fights over abortion, immigration and other issues pour over red versus blue states, and between cities and rural areas. All of it worsening economic outcomes but unlikely to go away anytime soon. Separately, EU plans to punish a...

Related Articles
livestock

Cattle on Feed Report: Bullish Outlook

USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released Friday. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity was 11.5 million head, unchanged from last month, but 98 percent of last year. Marketings totaled 1.63 million head, or 87 percent of last year, in li...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

CFTC COT Report Analysis

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the fifth straight week. Funds added 95,000 contracts to their all-ags net long position, with buying in the soy complex driving about two-thirds of the increase.  The soy complex saw...

livestock

Cattle on Feed - Feb 1, 2026

U.S. Cattle on Feed in feedlots totaled 11.5 million head on February 1, 2026 - 2 percent below Feb 1, 2025.  Placements in feedlots during January totaled 1.74 million head, 5 percent below 2025.  Marketings during January totaled 1.63 million head, 13 percent below 2025.   ...

livestock

Cattle on Feed Report: Bullish Outlook

USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released Friday. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity was 11.5 million head, unchanged from last month, but 98 percent of last year. Marketings totaled 1.63 million head, or 87 percent of last year, in li...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

CFTC COT Report Analysis

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the fifth straight week. Funds added 95,000 contracts to their all-ags net long position, with buying in the soy complex driving about two-thirds of the increase.  The soy complex saw...

livestock

Cattle on Feed - Feb 1, 2026

U.S. Cattle on Feed in feedlots totaled 11.5 million head on February 1, 2026 - 2 percent below Feb 1, 2025.  Placements in feedlots during January totaled 1.74 million head, 5 percent below 2025.  Marketings during January totaled 1.63 million head, 13 percent below 2025.   ...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for February 6-12, 2026.  Wheat: Net sales of 288,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 41 percent from the previous week and 44 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 322,600 MT were down 44 percent from the previous week and 26 percen...

Image
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.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up