WASDE, Mid-Year Change in Trends USDA's June WASDE contained some trends that deviate from beginning-of-the-year expectations. Total meat production in 2013 was raised from April's forecast because of greater beef and broiler production. That increase more than offsets lower pork production.USDA's semi-annual beef cattle survey for January 2013 shows the beef herd down to its lowest level since 1952. The 2012 drought increased cattle slaughter by about 1 percent over 2011, while fed cattle and cull cow prices hit record highs for the third consecutive year and look to be even higher this year. These high prices were expected to slow slaughter and lead to herd rebuilding. However, beef production is raised from last month's projections...
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.