Although USDA’s Cattle on Feed report was in line with expectations, the quarterly Hogs and Pigs report was not.WPI’s last Livestock Roundup (see Ag Perspectives, 22 December) previewed the next day’s release of USDA’s monthly Cattle on Feed and quarterly Hogs and Pigs reports. The Cattle on Feed report was in line with expectations. Pre-report estimates pegged total inventory on feed on 1 December at 98.5 percent of last year, and the actual came in at 99 percent. Market attention would normally focus on the “Feeder Cattle Supplies Outside Feedlots” table in order to determine the size of the herd on pasture and wheat that is ready to move onto feedlots. In March, however, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) suspended th...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Bangladesh has asked the USA for technical assistance to improve grain storage and strengthen quality testing of imported grains. Of major importance to Bangladesh is the “technology to improve grain preservation and grain s...
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.