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Healthier Diet Cost

Nutritionists advise eating more fruits and vegetables (F&V). On a calorie basis, F&V can be more expensive than a diet of carbs and fats so a trial program subsidized their use by some recipients of U.S. domestic food assistance. Policymakers are also considering limiting the number of less healthy food products eligible to be purchased using government benefits.  New data from USDA’s Economic Research Service reveals some anomalies in the F&V sector. For example, dried fruit is generally more expensive due to the cost of drying, but fresh raspberries at an average $6.61/pound are way up there. Fresh fruits and juices are generally cheaper but not definitively. Canned cherries cost more than frozen raspberries, desp...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Mixed But Steady with an Outside Surprise

The U.S. created more new jobs in January than expected, especially in healthcare. And there was more ethanol produced last week than the market expected. Soyoil hit a new contract high, but South American production continues to look quite substantial. The mixed news produced mixed results, bu...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further last week, with estimated net losses widening to -$247/head, extending the deterioration seen through late January. Boxed beef values were firmer last week, but gains failed to offset increases in fed cattle prices, resulting in additional margin compression...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.275/bushel, down $0.0125 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.3725/bushel, up $0.09 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $11.24/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $303/short ton, up $2.2 from ye...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Mixed But Steady with an Outside Surprise

The U.S. created more new jobs in January than expected, especially in healthcare. And there was more ethanol produced last week than the market expected. Soyoil hit a new contract high, but South American production continues to look quite substantial. The mixed news produced mixed results, bu...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further last week, with estimated net losses widening to -$247/head, extending the deterioration seen through late January. Boxed beef values were firmer last week, but gains failed to offset increases in fed cattle prices, resulting in additional margin compression...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.275/bushel, down $0.0125 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.3725/bushel, up $0.09 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $11.24/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $303/short ton, up $2.2 from ye...

wheat

WASDE Wheat - Feb 2026

USDA’s outlook for 2025/26 U.S. wheat is unchanged for exports and slightly higher ending stocks to 931 million bushels - 9 percent higher than last year and the largest since 2019/20. The projected 2025/26 season-average farm price remains at $4.90 per bushel.  The global outlook fo...

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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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