President Trump gave a speech in Iowa this week focusing heavily on ag, especially biofuels issues, but it is what was between the lines that raises some confusion.President Trump made a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa this week to give a speech at Kirkwood Community College that focused heavily on ag and biofuels policy. His critics labelled it a triumphalist event as it was his first return to that state since the election. They also called it a “campaign rally,” and it was indeed an effort by Trump to reach out to his political base, which includes farmers as has been well documented. However, while farmers receive much lip service from the president, it is not clear that he is on the same page policy-wise with most ag producers.For example,...
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, and the latest retail sales data indicate that spending remains robust despite inflation. In September, total retail and food service sales rose more than 6 percent year-over-year, with food service spending up 7 percent and...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
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.