World Perspectives
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White Commodities

The U.S. rice industry motivated its politicians to attack USTR Katherine Tai last week as she made the rounds on Capitol Hill. The main point of their ire is India, which they claim uses subsidies far more than WTO rules allow. Indeed, India has subsidized agriculture to the point that its rice exports have doubled over the past decade and now constitutes 40 percent of global trade. Its sugar exports have also doubled and, at 8.5 MMT, it became the world’s sixth largest wheat exporter this year.  Of course, U.S. rice producers are not innocent. They are also heavily subsidized with government support in some years representing over half of farm income. Globally, rice is a trader’s nightmare as governments erect some of th...

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WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 16 September)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins improved for the sixth straight week to put returns at their highest point in two years. The increase in margins came despite a pullback in beef values as packers were able to push fed cattle prices even lower and increase profits. The big concern for packers in the next 3-4...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Waiting for Confirmation or Contradiction

The CBOT was mostly in the red to start the week with the bullishness from Friday’s WASDE report failing to trigger enthusiasm from bulls this week. Corn and soybeans both tried to rally and follow Friday’s bullish action, but quickly triggered farmer/hedge selling and profit taking...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

WPI Crop Progress and Conditions App (Updated 16 September)

Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...

livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins improved for the sixth straight week to put returns at their highest point in two years. The increase in margins came despite a pullback in beef values as packers were able to push fed cattle prices even lower and increase profits. The big concern for packers in the next 3-4...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Waiting for Confirmation or Contradiction

The CBOT was mostly in the red to start the week with the bullishness from Friday’s WASDE report failing to trigger enthusiasm from bulls this week. Corn and soybeans both tried to rally and follow Friday’s bullish action, but quickly triggered farmer/hedge selling and profit taking...

Outlook for the Fed Meeting This Week

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week with the make-up of the committee still up in the air. Governor Lisa Cook is questionable regarding her attendance after President Trump has sought her to ouster her on mortgage frau...

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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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