World Perspectives

BRICS Differ; EU Agriculture Policy Update

BRICS Differ In the adjacent article on BRICS Dominate, it is noted how the five key countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting this week in South Africa stand out in terms of global agriculture. However, they are also different from a policy standpoint. Researchers at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland note some other differences about the BRICS countries: They make heavier use of subsidies for local business enterprises. Instead of export bans, they tend to use more opaque measures such as licensing restrictions and export taxes and tax-based export incentives.  On average, they use fewer import tariffs, quotas, and licenses. It is the opaqueness, and autocratic approaches to policy by some major...

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Further Identification of Mispricing in Ag Futures

WPI offers the following analysis as a continuation of last week’s work examining mispricing opportunities in agricultural futures. Readers may recall that this work seeks to identify for the major agricultural commodities where along the forward curve current futures have the greatest er...

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From WPI Consulting

Infrastructure investment due diligence

On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.

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