The Market Soybean crushing margins improved 5 percent this week as lower soybean costs offset a mild dip in soyoil values while soymeal prices were essentially unchanged. The board crush margin (that is, the margin implied by CBOT soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures) is up 6.5 percent from last Thursday at $1.48/bushel and are 123 percent above year-ago levels. The crush margin has turned sideways over the past three weeks after a solid rally in March and early April. Seasonally, crush margins tend to remain volatile but relatively steady from May into July, at which point they have rallied sharply in each of the past three years. The oilshare of the crush margin (that is, the proportion of revenues contributed by the s...
What You Need to Know Today: Last week’s Trump-Xi meetings included China agreeing to roll back $60 billion in tariffs on a huge swath of U.S. ag products, just notably not soybeans. The exclusion of soybeans from the tariff-reduction list means China’s state-run importers COFCO an...
Mexico Trade Deal The Trump Administration is looking for a win before the November midterm elections, now just five weeks away, especially as trade relations with Canada worsen and there is now a truce with China. The U.S. has made it clear to Mexican officials that it wants a deal with Mexico...
Key Takeaways: The U.S.-China agreement lowers tariffs on several U.S. agricultural products, but the lack of additional soybean commitments or greater certainty surrounding China’s existing 25 MMT purchase pledge made the deal a slight disappointment. Lower tariffs on U.S. corn are unli...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.