Falling feeder cattle prices, good pasture conditions, and tightening feedlot margins are working to reduce the number of feeder cattle entering feedlots. Feeder cattle receipts in June totaled 898,000 head, just 84 percent of June 2018 receipts and near the lowest in seven years. The CME Feeder Cattle Index is down 9 percent YTD and is 7 percent lower than this time last year. The lower prices are encouraging owners of feeder cattle outside of feedlots to retain ownership, rather than sell to feedlots. Additionally, feedlots’ recent trend of placing heavier cattle on feed is encouraging cow-calf and stocker operations to keep animals on pasture. While mother nature has punished farmers this year, cow-calf and stocker operations have...
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...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.