Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) has the lowest average corn yield of any region in the world. Its corn yield is 77 percent lower than that achieved in North America. But the UN Food & Agriculture Organization predicts that SSA will experience a higher percentage increase in corn yields by 2031 of any region in the world, rising 17.7 percent. Since SSA also has the fastest growing population of any part of the world, having the highest rising yield of a staple crop is a good signal for food security. However, the FAO’s calculations must be put into context. A large percentage change from a low base can look outsized on order but amount to a relatively small actual increase. In this case, a 17.7 percent increase would still place the regi...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran reportedly agreed to pause hostilities to allow vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz this week (theoretically, at least). There were some rumors of a possible Chinese blockade against Taiwan. Analysts are looking for the largest U.S. 1 June cor...
Developer's Note: 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 obs...
Corn Argentina Argentina's corn harvest continued to advance at a moderate-to-slow pace, constrained by high moisture levels in both the grain and the fields. Harvest delays remain concentrated in the remaining early-planted corn in central and southern Buenos Aires. To date, harvesting has rea...
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.