World Perspectives

What Could Go Wrong?

The unclassified portion of the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s latest “Global Trends” report is pollyannish next to what wargamers are theorizing. The report categorizes risks into four categories: demographics, the environment, economics, and technology. On agriculture, it cites the sector for both contributing to global warming and being vulnerable to it, especially in terms of water. As if Donald Trump were still president, it predicts more “activist” trade policy and fragmentation over the next 20 years. Perhaps to the chagrin of Luddite activists, it says that biotechnology will contribute up to 20 percent of economic activity by 2040, addressing disease, hunger, and energy needs.  Yet the most...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Good Weather Trumps Demand

Markets opened today pretty much where they ended in the overnight and pretty much stayed that way all day, which is to say in the red. And it did so pretty much across the board on lower volume. There was just not any real change in the story of impending big U.S. crops arriving on top of big...

livestock

Bullish Cattle Inventory and Cattle on Feed Reports

USDA released two key reports on the cattle market today, the Cattle on Feed report and the July Cattle Inventory report.  The Cattle Inventory report was suspended last year, so this is the first look at the cattle herd since 2023.  The nation’s cattle herd, as of 1 July, is 94...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.19/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.3825/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.21/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $281.6/short ton, down $1...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Good Weather Trumps Demand

Markets opened today pretty much where they ended in the overnight and pretty much stayed that way all day, which is to say in the red. And it did so pretty much across the board on lower volume. There was just not any real change in the story of impending big U.S. crops arriving on top of big...

livestock

Bullish Cattle Inventory and Cattle on Feed Reports

USDA released two key reports on the cattle market today, the Cattle on Feed report and the July Cattle Inventory report.  The Cattle Inventory report was suspended last year, so this is the first look at the cattle herd since 2023.  The nation’s cattle herd, as of 1 July, is 94...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Dec 25 Corn closed at $4.19/bushel, down $0.0175 from yesterday's close.  Sep 25 Wheat closed at $5.3825/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Nov 25 Soybeans closed at $10.21/bushel, down $0.0325 from yesterday's close.  Dec 25 Soymeal closed at $281.6/short ton, down $1...

livestock

Cattle on Feed for July 1, 2025

U.S. Cattle on Feed is down 2 percent annually at 11.1 million head on July 1, 2025.  Placements in June totaled 1.44 million head, 8 percent below 2024. Marketings in June totaled 1.71 million head, 4 percent below 2024.  Other disappearance in June totaled 53,000 head, 7 percent bel...

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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.

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