World Perspectives
biofuel

Energy and Agriculture

Global agriculture produces energy, with 23 percent of ethanol produced from sugarcane, and another 7 percent produced from the molasses byproduct of processing sugarcane or sugarbeets. Increased production of ethanol has caused global sugar carryover to decline. Agriculture is also a major consumer of energy, utilizing 30 percent of BTU’s particularly through diesel and fertilizer.   Without energy, manufacturing is dead. Germany has shown how to make its manufacturing sector suffer via dumb energy policy, such as phasing out all of its nuclear power plants and becoming fully at the mercy of the pariah state Russia for its energy needs.  ...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Low Volume But Solid Intentions

The CME and traders recovered from a data center problem that halted overnight trading but it was the holiday interrupted week that sent trading volumes sharply lower on Friday. The day started with another flash sale of soybeans to China, evidencing that Beijing is committed to its agreement w...

livestock

Sow and Cattle Slaughter Dynamics

HOGS The USDA is releasing weekly slaughter data that was unavailable through the government shutdown. On average, through mid-November, sow slaughter has been around 57,400 head per week, which is about 3,400 head, or 5.6 percent lower than the weekly average of about 60,800 head per week in 2...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.4775/bushel, up $0.025 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.385/bushel, down $0.02 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soybeans closed at $11.3775/bushel, up $0.0625 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soymeal closed at $318.7/short ton, down $1.7 f...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Low Volume But Solid Intentions

The CME and traders recovered from a data center problem that halted overnight trading but it was the holiday interrupted week that sent trading volumes sharply lower on Friday. The day started with another flash sale of soybeans to China, evidencing that Beijing is committed to its agreement w...

livestock

Sow and Cattle Slaughter Dynamics

HOGS The USDA is releasing weekly slaughter data that was unavailable through the government shutdown. On average, through mid-November, sow slaughter has been around 57,400 head per week, which is about 3,400 head, or 5.6 percent lower than the weekly average of about 60,800 head per week in 2...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.4775/bushel, up $0.025 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.385/bushel, down $0.02 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soybeans closed at $11.3775/bushel, up $0.0625 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soymeal closed at $318.7/short ton, down $1.7 f...

livestock

Outlook for Cow Numbers Remains Limited

This year’s volatility in beef and cattle prices – particularly in the past two months – has heightened the industry’s interest in what the U.S. cattle herd will look like next year. The border closure with Mexico has certainly shrank cattle-on-feed inventories while str...

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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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