As noted previously, there is increasing attention to what a Biden Administration will mean to both agriculture and broader economic policy. It is not so much what Mr. Biden thinks, since he has proven to be a lifelong moderate, but rather the swirl of political forces around him that deserve attention. There is a cabal on the left that is at minimum suspicious and likely outright hostile to Big Ag. A trio in that group, Reps. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut), and Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) have filed legislation that would block USDA’s approval of faster line speeds at meatpacking plants. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) is expected to file the companion bill in the Senate. There is no evidence that faster l...
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.