World Perspectives
feed-grains softs

Kenya’s Crop Choices

In yesterday’s WPI Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa Regional analysis report, it was noted that Kenyan farmers are switching from growing maize to growing sweet potatoes. The latter being easier to grow than drought sensitive maize and netting three crops per year. But whether maize or sweet potatoes, rainfall is still necessary and FAO data shows that Kenya’s production of both crops had been declining.  Sweet potatoes can yield up to 10-times or more the weight per hectare, but both crops in Kenya have been relatively volatile.  There are also important nutritional tradeoffs. Where macronutrients are important, maize has a slight edge. And when looked at for micronutrients, the edge goes to sweet potatoes...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.2175/bushel, up $0.0375 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.2375/bushel, up $0.045 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.3375/bushel, up $0.0675 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $285.6/short ton, up $1.6 fr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Technical Momentum Shifts at Odds with Fundamentals

The CBOT was mostly higher to start the week with technical factors driving short covering and some cautious fresh long buying. There wasn’t much from a fundamental standpoint to drive the move, but the technical picture is firming for most commodities. Corn saw substantial follow-through...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 8 September)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.2175/bushel, up $0.0375 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Wheat closed at $5.2375/bushel, up $0.045 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.3375/bushel, up $0.0675 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $285.6/short ton, up $1.6 fr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Technical Momentum Shifts at Odds with Fundamentals

The CBOT was mostly higher to start the week with technical factors driving short covering and some cautious fresh long buying. There wasn’t much from a fundamental standpoint to drive the move, but the technical picture is firming for most commodities. Corn saw substantial follow-through...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 8 September)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Mercosur Regional Analysis

Wheat  Last week’s rainfall covered much of Argentina’s western wheat-growing region, improving prospects for cereals there. Still, 27.3 percent of the area now shows excess water — up from 7 percent the prior week — mainly in the east and south, where fungal diseas...

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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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