This will again be a record year for pork production, but the impact of that along with more pigs and hogs is not as bearish as it may seem.This will again be a record year for pork production, but the impact of that along with more pigs and hogs is not as bearish as it may seem. The chart below shows the value and cost of production for a farrow-to-finish hog operation. Historically, production costs have stayed relatively stable or even dropped somewhat since 2011. However, hog prices have fluctuated dramatically.Live hog and retail pork prices peaked in 2014 as supplies were reduced by the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), but they have generally been falling since 2015. In the final quarter of 2016, retail pork prices dropped $0.2...
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...
Beef packer margins plunged $105/head last week to $36/head as higher cattle prices combined with declining wholesale beef values to sharply compress packer profits. Fed cattle prices rose nearly $3/cwt to $227/cwt while the Choice cutout fell $4.75/cwt to $368/cwt. Margins have deteriorated $1...
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.