Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA The recent USDA-FAS report on Saudi Arabia’s barley trade says Arasco Saudi is marketing complete feed – Wafi brand – at a price about 20 percent lower than the price of imported barley. The report adds that this low price for feed is probably a temporary measure to build market share for Wafi feed. The report also says the government importer of barley - Saudi Arabian Grain Organization (SAGO) - has increased their local price for barley in order to actually make a profit. The higher barley price has decreased demand and is said to have shifted some consumption over to lower cost corn. Barley imports this year are down by about 12 percent to 1.7 MMT. Also in...
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.