Belarus is in the news, and not in a good way. The country’s leader since the fall of the Soviet Union (28 years) has been Alexander Lukashenko, also called the last dictator in Europe. To ensure that he will be dictator for life, he declared that death was the only way he will relinquish his office. Within the former Soviet bloc, Belarus has remained the strongest adherent to a centrally planned economy. As a result, its agriculture has been slow to adapt to competitive forces (e.g. use of collective and peasant farming). The geography is mostly marshland and forests, but it produces barley, wheat, livestock, and other products. Notably, it is the world’s eighth largest producer of potatoes and has had off- and on-again...
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...
Dry bulk markets were volatile but ultimately steady this week with notable differences in rate developments across vessel classes. The Capesize sector, which led the recent rally in freight rates with its dramatic surge, pulled back slightly amid more cautious chartering activity, partic...
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.