Meat packing plants are starting to resume operations, mostly under the President’s executive order which includes new health guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). USDA Secretary Perdue predicted that “probably a week to 10 days we’ll be back up, fully back up.” But there are still hiccups. The City of Milwaukee health department ordered a Cargill grind plant closed this week, despite the federal order. That prompted a letter from Secretary Perdue to governors and the executives of major companies saying that the standard is for state and local officials to work with the industry to maintain operational status while protecting...
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...