A number of Chinese crushers have reportedly chosen to suspend operations temporarily for several reasons. Meanwhile, the average crush margin for imported soybeans has been improving nationwide. Oilseeds Soybean Smuggling Operation Update Speculation continues to mount as to whether the soybean smuggling operation revealed at the beginning of March is tied to the spring 2014 Marubeni investigation. Moreover, it is not clear whether the four detained employees are the same individuals as those arrested from Shandong Sunrise and Shandong Canghua last year. Another factor that may be in play pertains to Shandong Sunrise's involvement in financial services, which was noted in a 2014 Reuters' article. That company launched its lending operat...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.