World Perspectives

Coercion Beholder; Down Under’s Demands

Coercion Beholder U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in a 1964 case that he could not define hard core pornography “But I know it when I see it.” The G-7 called for an end to boycotts of purchasing Japanese farm products, calling it a form of coercion. Meanwhile, the U.S. has ended AGOA benefits to Gabon, Niger, the Central African Republic, and Uganda. It didn’t like the governmental transition in the first two, and the anti-LGBTQ policies of the latter. China quit buying food from Japan, asserting concerns over nuclear contamination since the release of sea water from the Fukushima nuclear reactor. There is no actual identified radiation risk in Japanese food.  Meanwhile, the U.S. has struck a...

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livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins fell $68/head last week and marked the third straight week of declines to end near -$220, which is back among the worst margins in the past decade. The culprit for weaker margins was an $6/cwt pullback in the Choice cutout and broader beef markets while fed cattle prices ral...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Weather Overrides Trade Deal; Cattle Hit New Highs on Tight Inventories

The big news for Monday’s ag market trade wasn’t the U.S.-EU trade deal, but rather continued favorable weather in the U.S. Midwest that will boost corn and soybean yield potential to record or near-record levels. The weather has private analysts boosting yield expectations by sever...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 28 July)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins fell $68/head last week and marked the third straight week of declines to end near -$220, which is back among the worst margins in the past decade. The culprit for weaker margins was an $6/cwt pullback in the Choice cutout and broader beef markets while fed cattle prices ral...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Weather Overrides Trade Deal; Cattle Hit New Highs on Tight Inventories

The big news for Monday’s ag market trade wasn’t the U.S.-EU trade deal, but rather continued favorable weather in the U.S. Midwest that will boost corn and soybean yield potential to record or near-record levels. The weather has private analysts boosting yield expectations by sever...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 28 July)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.14/bushel, down $0.05 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.385/bushel, up $0.0025 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.115/bushel, down $0.095 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $279.3/short ton, down $2.3 fr...

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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.

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