WASDE Today’s WASDE report shows higher red meat and poultry production for 2019 and 2020 driven by pork and broilers. Pork production will be pushed by expanding production. The 1 September inventory at 77.7 million head was the largest since records began in 1988, and the June-August pig crop at 35.3 million head was the largest since those records began in 1970. The June-August pigs saved per litter at 11.11 was up from 10.72 head compared to 2018. The slowdown in placements of cattle on feed in the third quarter of 2019, which in July and August was at 94 percent of a year ago, has the early 2020 beef production down but it is forecast to increase in the second quarter. Broiler production is forecast to grow on flock expan...
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
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.