World Perspectives
feed-grains

El Niño Sparks Corn Demand

Corn production in Sub-Saharan Africa has been volatile for decades but when technology and investment should have been making it less so, it has instead gotten worse. 

This year’s El Niño has helped make a bad situation worse. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network identified the problem many months ago when rainfall during December- February, the normally peak precipitation months, was underwhelming. The agency predicted “crisis level” food aid requirements in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar. 

South Africa has had to import white corn for the first time since 2017, and Zambia’s corn crop was down by 50 percent and could require 1 MMT in imports. The situation could rev...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Gulf Conflict Creates Volatility but Little Support for Grains

The primary drivers of Monday’s grain trade were, of course, the U.S. and Israel’s weekend attacks on Iran that killed the latter country’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and the subsequent cascade of impacts on global markets. WPI covers these impacts in more detail in our nearby ar...

farm-inputs energy

Conflict in the Gulf: Impacts on Shipping and Energy

For weeks now, global energy and geopolitical markets have been speculating about a possible conflict in the Middle East between Iran and the U.S., but they still seemed unprepared and entirely surprised by what happened this weekend. Without going into the details that news outlets have alrea...

Transatlantic Sensitivities; Political Calculations

Transatlantic Sensitivities The frustration between the U.S. and Europe runs both ways, but the calculation is still one of mutual need, as articulated by American Secretary of State Marco Rubio at last month’s Munich Security Conference. Two recent data points will exasperate the White H...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Gulf Conflict Creates Volatility but Little Support for Grains

The primary drivers of Monday’s grain trade were, of course, the U.S. and Israel’s weekend attacks on Iran that killed the latter country’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and the subsequent cascade of impacts on global markets. WPI covers these impacts in more detail in our nearby ar...

farm-inputs energy

Conflict in the Gulf: Impacts on Shipping and Energy

For weeks now, global energy and geopolitical markets have been speculating about a possible conflict in the Middle East between Iran and the U.S., but they still seemed unprepared and entirely surprised by what happened this weekend. Without going into the details that news outlets have alrea...

Transatlantic Sensitivities; Political Calculations

Transatlantic Sensitivities The frustration between the U.S. and Europe runs both ways, but the calculation is still one of mutual need, as articulated by American Secretary of State Marco Rubio at last month’s Munich Security Conference. Two recent data points will exasperate the White H...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.4575/bushel, down $0.0275 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.7725/bushel, down $0.1425 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.64/bushel, down $0.0675 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $312.9/short ton, down...

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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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