Unfair Bullfight A hearing yesterday by the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee over the marketing of cattle was less equal than it appeared. Legislation sponsored by three senators to regulate the marketing of cattle and create USDA oversight was lauded by the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) and the National Farmers Union (NFU) but was opposed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). To the uninitiated, this seems like a draw. Ignoring the fact that the companies purchasing and processing the cattle (North American Meat Institute) also opposed the bills. But if democracy operates on popular opinion, the fight is not even fair. From the cattle producers’ side,...
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
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.