Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa Regional Analysis Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS The government of Pakistan is expected to announce the approval of wheat exports this week, which will be subject to a $100/MT subsidy. Experts say that this step is needed to both free up storage space and generate foreign currency due to those reserves dropping. According to press reports today, the volume of exports is yet to be determined, but some traders believe that as much as 1 MMT could be allowed. Also in Pakistan, reports say that maize crops there have tripled in the past 25 year or so, thanks to the hybrid variety, with all of this driven by the private sector rather than government action. This is because 65 percent...
Markets are caught between reasons to keep selling and reasons to take another look. Fund liquidation and renewed peace talks are pressuring grains, while fresh export business and some diesel relief offer encouragement. Corn recovered nearly 10 cents from its low to finish higher, while soybea...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
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.