By the rhetoric and adverse publicity, agriculture would appear to be failing when it comes to sustainability. But just as air and water quality have statistically improved in many developed countries over the years, global agriculture has some favorable metrics with which it can explain environmental progress. Between 2014 and 2018, global use of pesticides declined (-0.91 percent), use of fertilizers rose a miniscule amount (0.184 percent), and cropland area increased just 1.31 percent. Over that same period, world output of major row crops increased by 4.11 percent. These trends are more pronounced when isolated to developed countries where most of the criticism originates. Add the increasing use of no-till, crop rotation, and productio...
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.