Infrastructure Costs to Soybeans The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has published the third in a series of books on Latin American integration with the world market. The authors lament that Latin America comprises the same 8-10 percent of global trade that it occupied 25 years ago, despite some booming export areas such as agriculture. Inter-regional trade is only 20 percent of GDP versus 40 percent for inter-Asian trade. Examples include Matto Grosso soybeans that travel 1,400 miles to the port in Santos. As only 27 percent of Brazilian roads are paved, transport adds another 16 percent to the cost (not counting higher operating costs) and causes a 25 percent decline in the price received by producers. The IDB does not call for...
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...
Monday, 25 May is a U.S. holiday, and both the markets and our office will be closed. Please note that the next issue of Ag Perspectives will be published on Tuesday, 26 May. The WPI staff wishes everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
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.