Regional News Global grain and oilseed markets are reacting to several shocks that occurred last week, most notably the EPA’s surprise bullish renewable fuel obligations for the U.S. and the Israel-Iran conflict. Oil futures are sharply higher on the Middle East conflict that threatens to draw the U.S. and other nations into a regional conflict. Too, rising energy prices are causing prices for fertilizer to increase and the location of the Israel-Iran conflict threatens the resumption of freight traffic through the Red Sea again. Trade body COCERAL raised its forecast of the 2025 combined grain harvest to 300.7 MMT due to larger soft wheat and barley output in southern Europe and France. The EU corn crop was trimmed due to...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: The surprises from the USDA’s Acreage report were a sharp reduction in winter wheat area from the March Prospective Plantings estimates and a larger-than-expected increase in corn area. The Grain Stocks report offered relatively few surprises, but quarterly d...
Key Takeaways: High oleic soybeans produce oil containing 70–80 percent oleic acid, improving stability and eliminating the need for partial hydrogenation, which eliminates trans fats. There are three primary varieties of high oleic soybeans available commercially: Plenish, Vistive Gold,...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Oman Flour Mills has begun its 2026 purchases of locally produced wheat. The mill runs a government-supported program that it says strengthens the country’s food supply. The program is said to “improve farming practice...