World Perspectives
feed-grains

El Niño Sparks Corn Demand

Corn production in Sub-Saharan Africa has been volatile for decades but when technology and investment should have been making it less so, it has instead gotten worse. 

This year’s El Niño has helped make a bad situation worse. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network identified the problem many months ago when rainfall during December- February, the normally peak precipitation months, was underwhelming. The agency predicted “crisis level” food aid requirements in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar. 

South Africa has had to import white corn for the first time since 2017, and Zambia’s corn crop was down by 50 percent and could require 1 MMT in imports. The situation could rev...

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Thune Introduces Fertilizer Price Reporting Bill

The war in Iran has brought the four-year simmering focus on fertilizer prices to a quick boil.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) introduced the Fertilizer Transparency Act, cosponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsi...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Middle East, Mediterranean, and Africa Regional Analysis

Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt has seen a sharp rise in wheat prices due to increased shipping costs and the 9 percent drop in the value of Egypt’s currency. Wheat prices in Egypt are said to be up by as much as $24/MT. Both ocean freight costs and...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.595/bushel, down $0.06 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.8775/bushel, down $0.075 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.635/bushel, up $0.0225 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $326.6/short ton, down $1.4...

Thune Introduces Fertilizer Price Reporting Bill

The war in Iran has brought the four-year simmering focus on fertilizer prices to a quick boil.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) introduced the Fertilizer Transparency Act, cosponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsi...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Middle East, Mediterranean, and Africa Regional Analysis

Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt has seen a sharp rise in wheat prices due to increased shipping costs and the 9 percent drop in the value of Egypt’s currency. Wheat prices in Egypt are said to be up by as much as $24/MT. Both ocean freight costs and...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Summary of Futures

May 26 Corn closed at $4.595/bushel, down $0.06 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Wheat closed at $5.8775/bushel, down $0.075 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soybeans closed at $11.635/bushel, up $0.0225 from yesterday's close.  May 26 Soymeal closed at $326.6/short ton, down $1.4...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Oil and Iran Conflict Still in Drivers’ Seat, but This Time Creating Pressure

Volatility has been no stranger to the CBOT these past three weeks, and the one consistency during this time has been the dramatic coupling of ag markets’ fortunes to the foibles of crude oil. That was again true on Monday, but this time crude oil offered a bearish – rather than sup...

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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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