Dissecting BSE Barriers: South Korea and Japan have domestic policies far more driven to close off their respective import markets in the event of BSE cases, yet they remain open. By contrast, Thailand and Indonesia are blocking imports. Given that Thailand ranks as the 65th largest market for U.S. beef (only $1.2 million), this has more to do with Bangkok being kept out of the TPP, and U.S. SPS barriers against some of Thailand's specialty fruits and other products. Indonesia was hardly a better market with $2 million in beef purchases last year. USTR Ron Kirk said last week in Singapore that the goal is to get all ASEAN countries, which includes Thailand, into a trading arrangement like TPP and Bangkok is adding pressure to make it happ...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
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.