World Perspectives
livestock

Arbitraging Energy

Food prices have increased but not as much as energy costs. The latest CPI data shows food at home increased year-on-year in April by 10.8 percent, and by even more for animal proteins. However, the cost of gasoline has jumped from $2.948/gallon in April 2021 to $4.213/gallon last month. U.S. energy costs are a third less than Japan’s, and only half as much as Germany’s. Energy is about 14 percent of U.S. agricultural production costs and likely a larger share in most countries, though it is substantially less a cost burden in Russia. Because shipping water is expensive and even more so when bunker oil prices are high, countries that produce food and extract its water using lower energy costs are more competitive in global mark...

Related Articles
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.435/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.745/bushel, up $0.0475 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.635/bushel, down $0.015 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $320.9/short ton, down $0.9 fr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for February 13-19, 2026  Wheat: Net sales of 243,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 16 percent from the previous week and 43 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 540,000 MT were up 67 percent from the previous week and 28 percent...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Wholesale Protein CPI

During the State of the Union (SOTU) address, President Trump made several claims about food prices, citing reductions in costs to consumers. Food inflation is a major issue for voters, and the President is hyper-focused on beef prices in particular prior to the 2026 mid-term elections. The fin...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.435/bushel, up $0.015 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.745/bushel, up $0.0475 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.635/bushel, down $0.015 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $320.9/short ton, down $0.9 fr...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Export Sales

Export Sales and Shipments for February 13-19, 2026  Wheat: Net sales of 243,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 16 percent from the previous week and 43 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 540,000 MT were up 67 percent from the previous week and 28 percent...

livestock

Livestock Round Up: Wholesale Protein CPI

During the State of the Union (SOTU) address, President Trump made several claims about food prices, citing reductions in costs to consumers. Food inflation is a major issue for voters, and the President is hyper-focused on beef prices in particular prior to the 2026 mid-term elections. The fin...

soy-oilseeds

U.S. Soy & Product Export Trends

With soybean and soy product exports frequently in the headlines amid the ongoing tariff and policy shifts from Washington, examining export trends is increasingly important. Thursday’s updated Export Sales report from the USDA offered some interesting statistics for these markets, and WP...

Image
From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

Search World Perspectives

Sign In to World Perspectives

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up