According to a recent Federal Reserve report, prices were below breakeven for a number of commodities in the Corn Belt. It also indicates that credit conditions have deteriorated in several areas of the country, and yet demand for loans remains steady. This has increased the applications for USDA loan guarantees.Although prices for a number of commodities have increased recently, those for most crop and animal product remain below their levels of a year earlier, keeping financial pressure on producers. According to the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book on economic conditions (released 1 June and based on data prior to 23 May), prices were below breakeven for a number of commodities in the Corn Belt across the Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
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.