Regional Update MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS Officials in Iran say that wheat crops in some areas are up 30 percent. Production is expected to total about 14 MMT in 2019, which will enable the country to remain self-sufficient into 2020. As recently as 2014, it had to import up to 35 percent of its wheat consumption. The government has purchased about 1.2 MMT from farmers so far in the crop year. Iran says that some of the wheat crop improvement is attributable to use of the Participatory Varietal Selection system that matches seed stock with growing condition. Iraq reports harvesting about 500,000 MT of wheat in the first three weeks of the 2019 harvest against a target of 5 MMT. Meanwhile, news reports there say that local ISIS m...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
Dry bulk markets were volatile but ultimately steady this week with notable differences in rate developments across vessel classes. The Capesize sector, which led the recent rally in freight rates with its dramatic surge, pulled back slightly amid more cautious chartering activity, partic...
Key Market Insights Macro markets delivered a full whipsaw today. Early in the session, crude oil had rallied back above $100/barrel as traders priced renewed concern over the U.S.-Iran standoff and potential supply risk through the Strait of Hormuz. That strength helped pull grains off their o...
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.