MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST COMMENTS Lebanese millers have again protested strongly against the “official” rate of the U.S. dollar in the country. The rate has not changed in about 20 years with the Lebanese pound pegged at 1,507 to the U.S. dollar. With the shortage of dollars from Lebanese banks, and the very unattractive exchange rate, millers find it very difficult to import wheat which requires payment in dollars. Millers say that they are rapidly running out of wheat and could face a crisis. Lebanon imports about 1.8 MMT of wheat per year. Syria is trying once again to find a way to swap 100,000 MT of durum wheat for 100,000 MT of soft wheat. Syria had been trying to work a deal with Russian interest, but this was not fina...
After spending much of the year searching for a reason to stay, the bulls suddenly have several. Grain markets have strengthened, wheat is leading the charge, outside markets are becoming more supportive, and geopolitical and weather risks are once again demanding attention. Does that mean the...
Key Takeaways: Cover crops are gaining adoption as farmers seek to improve soil health, reduce erosion, and build more resilient cropping systems. While cover crops do not provide immediate revenue, their long-term benefits include improved nutrient retention, water management, and soil produc...
The latest EIA data showed some interesting anomalies in the ethanol industry, changes that will have a material impact on the industry’s profits and corn consumption for 2025/26 and early 2026/27. The EIA reported that ethanol production fell 4.8 percent for the week ending 10 July...
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.