The closure of the Mexican border to feeder cattle imports due to New World Screwworm (NWS) has led to a 17 percent increase in beef prices in Mexico and a 12 percent increase in prices in the U.S. Cattle shipments to the U.S. have dropped more than 70 percent from January to July of this year compared to the same period in 2024. Prices of fed cattle in the U.S. rose 31 percent in July compared to the same month last year, while in Mexico the increase was 35 percent over the same period. Cattle inventories in both countries are expected to take between 18 to 24 months to recover, so prices are likely to remain firm. All this will depend on the evolution of the sanitary campaigns against the screwworm and the opening of the U.S. border, and...
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.
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...