As the 2017/18 new crop cycle gets underway in the Northern Hemisphere, it is inevitable that new weather scares will emerge to energize or torment market traders, and there are several real or potential candidates.In grain market parlance, a weather scare occurs when current or forecast conditions pose a threat to timely crop planting, crop growth and development, or harvest conditions in ways that might affect the quantity and/or quality in important areas of production or consumption. Since grain and oilseed crops are produced and consumed virtually worldwide, there will always be periods/pockets of unfavorable weather somewhere in the world. To qualify as a true weather scare in a market sense, though, the threat must cover areas where...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. conducted “self-defense strikes” in Iran and said the two sides are “close” to negotiating a ceasefire. “Close” is a relative term, however, and even if 95 percent of the terms are agreed to, the remaining 5 percent is l...
As we reported on 19 May, China has also committed to the resumption of U.S. poultry imports from states without confirmed HPAI detections. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has updated its China export restrictions webpage to reflect that China has lifted HPAI-rel...
Key Takeaways: Brazil has been the second-largest producer of fuel ethanol globally, but almost all of it was derived from sugarcane until recently. Corn ethanol production has increased due to expanded second-crop corn production, sugarcane storage limitations, and biofuel policy. Brazil is e...
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.