World Perspectives

Divergence of Markets; Fear No Beer; Little Net Gain

Divergence of Markets Food away from home has been outpacing food at home as the cost of human services has written. The categories on the rise include meat, eggs, produce, and alcohol. Food prices are unlikely to descend and even food price discounter Walmart has struggled to restrain what they charge to their budget conscious costumers. Prices that have declined include bananas, salmon, pork chops and sweet potatoes. Nonetheless, one troubling result is that the number of Americans reporting that they lack sufficient food rose 25 percent in 2024. At the same time, more affluent shoppers are increasing their purchases of more expensive organic foods by 13.9 percent CAGR.  Through a combination of production hurdles and health concerns...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Turnaround Tuesday for Grains; Soybeans Sag; New Highs for Cattle

Corn and wheat found technical support Tuesday that created turnarounds on their respective charts and, in the case of wheat, formed bullish key reversals. News of smaller corn yields in the Midwest and strong export sales performance last week helped boost corn and wheat values following Monda...

livestock

The Strange Effects of Screwworm

For the first six months of 2025, cattle imports from Mexico are down 73.1 percent due to restrictions from the discovery of New World Screwworm (NWS) in Mexico. From January to July 2024 there were 853,976 head imported into the U.S. from Mexico, but in 2025 that volume over the same time peri...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.13/bushel, up $0.0225 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.0025/bushel, up $0.035 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.065/bushel, down $0.0125 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $274.3/short ton, up $0.2 fro...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Turnaround Tuesday for Grains; Soybeans Sag; New Highs for Cattle

Corn and wheat found technical support Tuesday that created turnarounds on their respective charts and, in the case of wheat, formed bullish key reversals. News of smaller corn yields in the Midwest and strong export sales performance last week helped boost corn and wheat values following Monda...

livestock

The Strange Effects of Screwworm

For the first six months of 2025, cattle imports from Mexico are down 73.1 percent due to restrictions from the discovery of New World Screwworm (NWS) in Mexico. From January to July 2024 there were 853,976 head imported into the U.S. from Mexico, but in 2025 that volume over the same time peri...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.13/bushel, up $0.0225 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.0025/bushel, up $0.035 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.065/bushel, down $0.0125 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $274.3/short ton, up $0.2 fro...

Worse Before Better; Tech Rescue; Value Added

Worse Before Better First China announced restrictions on rare earth exports, then President Trump announced 100 percent tariffs and software restrictions starting 1 November in retaliation, until he signaled everything was just a bad day. China then sanctioned a U.S. shipping subsidiary. Some...

Image
From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up