World Perspectives

World Food Day Perspective

Commodity prices have been on the rise and most of the attention until this week has been on the supply side with worries about weather. In recent days it has become clear that countries have stepped up purchasing as a hedge against a resurgence of COVID-breaking supply chains. However, supply chains would be more resilient if they could operate properly. Food prices tend to be highest in places like Switzerland, the UK, Japan, and Hong Kong. This in part can be attributable to the overall cost of living but can also be aggravated by policies. Bananas do not grow well in northern Europe and cost just $0.94/Kg in the UK but $3.22/Kg in Switzerland, both high cost of living countries. The lowly onion is $1.04/Kg in Belgium but $2.33/Kg next...

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Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins weakened further last week, with estimated net losses widening to -$247/head, extending the deterioration seen through late January. Boxed beef values were firmer last week, but gains failed to offset increases in fed cattle prices, resulting in additional margin compression...

A Year in Review: Impact of Tariffs on Agricultural and Food Processing Machinery

We now have nearly a year of data to work with on the impact of the Trump Administration’s tariffs.  When they were first announced, there was quite a bit of conjecture and some sophisticated economic analysis about how trade flows would be impacted. This brief analysis will focus br...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

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livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

Mar 26 Corn closed at $4.275/bushel, down $0.0125 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Wheat closed at $5.3725/bushel, up $0.09 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soybeans closed at $11.24/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  Mar 26 Soymeal closed at $303/short ton, up $2.2 from ye...

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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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