According to the May edition of the Purdue University Ag Barometer, farmers see farmland values remaining high and are likely to scale back on planned equipment purchases and investments in farm buildings and grain storage. The barometer is based on monthly surveys of 400 producers to gauge their economic sentiment each month. Each quarter there is an in-depth survey of 100 agriculture and agribusiness thought leaders. The overall index is at its lowest since September 2020; both the outlook for current conditions and future expectations were lower than in April (though higher than most months since 2018). Short-term land value expectations were down slightly from the April outlook, dropping from the April index of 159 to 157 in May;...
Key Takeaways: The CME Group is launching new 90 percent Lean Beef and 50 percent Lean Beef futures and options contracts in July. There are five key factors that must be present in physical markets and futures contract specifications for futures contracts to become successful. The two l...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
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.