The dryness in Brazil’s soybean production areas is worth watching because there is a history to the situation. There are not the La Niña conditions for a larger adverse impact, but Brazilian soybean yields have historically been lowered when spring rains fail to provide enough moisture. In 2011, La Niña struck South America and the drought in Brazil was said to be worse than the 2008/2009 event. Between mid-December 2011 and early January 2012, the Department of Rural Economy (DERAL) raised the amount of soybeans rated in medium/bad condition from 18 percent to 32 percent, while lowering crops rated in good condition from 82 percent to 68. Yields that growing season fell 15 percent from a year earlier to just 2.6...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
From WPI Consulting
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.