Russian Grain Markets: 31 March – 4 April 2025 Russian wheat, the only de-facto exportable commodity for the moment, is relatively stable but shows the first signs of appreciation. This is happening amid solid demand from exporters and melting stocks. As of 1 March, Russian wheat stocks showed 11.6 MMT, down 34 percent from the previous year. In Southern Federal District, the Russian grain belt, stocks were as low as 2.5 MMT which is only half of what it was a year ago. Weekly wheat exports are below 0.5 MMT and exporters are complaining that wheat available for loading from seaports is in short supply and some wheat is still enroute to the port by rail. The strong RUB is a major factor for pricing in both shallow water ports and deep...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: Agricultural commodities were mostly lower on the day, with red-hot soyoil a notable exception. Export sales were a bit underwhelming, particularly for corn with export sales down 52 percent week-over-week. The weakness in ag markets tracked crude oil weakness wit...
With the war in Iran affecting fuel and fertilizer prices, higher tariffs, weak commodity prices, ag labor constraints, and other factors, farm bankruptcies are now at a 6-year high, a signal of growing stress. During the month of April, 62 Chapter 12 bankruptcies were filed, which is a 1...
WPI recently completed an expansion of our methodology for estimating and forecasting U.S. and global soybean crushing margins. The new approach incorporates the energy market’s expanding influence on the oilseed sector and the structural changes in global biofuel demand. This report is i...