Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA COMMENTS Pakistan has declared a national emergency due to the spread of desert locusts in the eastern part of the country. They say that it is the worst infestation in 20 years – one that could decimate local grain crops. The locusts reportedly entered Pakistan from Iran. Pakistan has also allowed the private sector to import up to 300,000 MT of wheat, free of taxes, but many doubt that the private sector will import as local transportation costs from the port to destination will make imported wheat prices too high. The Pakistan government still insists that there is no wheat shortage in the country with most parts of the country showing no shortages. The recent FAO report o...
What You Need to Know Today: Agricultural commodities were mostly lower on the day, with red-hot soyoil a notable exception. Export sales were a bit underwhelming, particularly for corn with export sales down 52 percent week-over-week. The weakness in ag markets tracked crude oil weakness wit...
With the war in Iran affecting fuel and fertilizer prices, higher tariffs, weak commodity prices, ag labor constraints, and other factors, farm bankruptcies are now at a 6-year high, a signal of growing stress. During the month of April, 62 Chapter 12 bankruptcies were filed, which is a 1...
WPI recently completed an expansion of our methodology for estimating and forecasting U.S. and global soybean crushing margins. The new approach incorporates the energy market’s expanding influence on the oilseed sector and the structural changes in global biofuel demand. This report is i...
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.