World Perspectives

Low Art of Rhétorique; Rearview Mirror Incentives; Future Policy, Future Elections

Low Art of Rhétorique There is much to parse from French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech to the annual Salon International de l’Agriculture, but that is because it was first and foremost a political speech. Last year he told French farmers to step up their own investments in order to be competitive. However, after battling this winter with the Yellow Vests, his message now is that Brussels must spend big to protect farmers from foreign competitors. He made a paean for the protectionist concept of “food sovereignty” and oddly said that dependence on imported soybeans brings volatility, even though free trade is understood to reduce it. President Trump is justifiably criticized for his boneheaded statements...

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Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.445/bushel, up $0.04 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.0775/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soybeans closed at $10.5225/bushel, down $0.06 from yesterday's close.  Jan 26 Soymeal closed at $298.4/short ton, up $0.2 from...

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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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