Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Farmers embraced that message and demanded compensation for falling commodity prices that they blamed on the coronavirus. A Wall Street Journal article last week cited a 10 percent drop in corn prices, a 4 percent cut in soybean prices and a 2 percent reduction in wheat futures since 24 February. But prices change. Recent rallies have wheat and soybeans now showing gains since 24 February. It is true that there will be labor scarcities, and higher cost products like beef will suffer from a recession, but the timing of last week’s price complaints had more to do with getting a seat at the table in Congress crafting a giant $2 trillion c...
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.
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...