In a "normal" year the September WASDE yield and crop estimates are usually just bridges between the August WASDE, when the estimates reflect the first actual survey, and the October WASDE, by which time there are inputs from some actual harvest results. This is far from a "normal" year, of course. Every monthly WASDE becomes very important for markets, and as such, will be closely scrutinized.The historic 2012 drought has dramatically cut corn and soybean production, and it has rushed both crops toward maturity. USDA reports that as of 9 September 58 percent of the nation's corn crop is mature, far ahead of the average for the date of 27 percent. Already, 15 percent of the corn crop has been harvested. Thirty-six percent of the soybean c...
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
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.