World Perspectives
22 March 2024 – Policy

Fixing the WTO; The Winner is Ag

By Gary Blumenthal for Ag Perspectives

Fixing the WTO The 13th Ministerial Conference last month in Abu Dhabi was yet another failure by the WTO. Now Singapore has proposed a retreat to discuss fundamental fixes needed to stop the long string of failures. Ultimately, the structural problems of the WTO involve one country, one vote and the necessity of consensus. Gambia with just 1.4 million people and a $2 billion economy has the same voting power as China with 1.4 billion people and $17.7 trillion in GDP. None of the other Bretton Woods institutions have this flaw. The UN is prejudiced toward the more powerful countries via the Security Council. The bias of the IMF and World Bank is toward economic size and capital contributions.  The majority involves poorer countries a...

TAGS – North America, Macroeconomics
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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat
22 February 2026 – Analysis

CFTC COT Report Analysis

By Matt Herrington for Ag Perspectives

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the fifth straight week. Funds added 95,000 contracts to their all-ags net long position, with buying in the soy complex driving about two-thirds of the increase.  The soy complex saw...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Wheat, Livestock, Energy, Softs, North America
livestock
20 February 2026 – Analytics

Cattle on Feed - Feb 1, 2026

By Staff for Commodity Analytics

U.S. Cattle on Feed in feedlots totaled 11.5 million head on February 1, 2026 - 2 percent below Feb 1, 2025.  Placements in feedlots during January totaled 1.74 million head, 5 percent below 2025.  Marketings during January totaled 1.63 million head, 13 percent below 2025.   ...

TAGS – Livestock, North America
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat
20 February 2026 – Analytics

Export Sales

By Staff for Commodity Analytics

Export Sales and Shipments for February 6-12, 2026.  Wheat: Net sales of 288,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 41 percent from the previous week and 44 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 322,600 MT were down 44 percent from the previous week and 26 percen...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Wheat, North America
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat
22 February 2026 – Analysis

CFTC COT Report Analysis

By Matt Herrington for Ag Perspectives

Friday’s CFTC report showed funds expanding long positions across the major ag futures contracts for the fifth straight week. Funds added 95,000 contracts to their all-ags net long position, with buying in the soy complex driving about two-thirds of the increase.  The soy complex saw...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Wheat, Livestock, Energy, Softs, North America
livestock
20 February 2026 – Analytics

Cattle on Feed - Feb 1, 2026

By Staff for Commodity Analytics

U.S. Cattle on Feed in feedlots totaled 11.5 million head on February 1, 2026 - 2 percent below Feb 1, 2025.  Placements in feedlots during January totaled 1.74 million head, 5 percent below 2025.  Marketings during January totaled 1.63 million head, 13 percent below 2025.   ...

TAGS – Livestock, North America
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat
20 February 2026 – Analytics

Export Sales

By Staff for Commodity Analytics

Export Sales and Shipments for February 6-12, 2026.  Wheat: Net sales of 288,000 metric tons (MT) for 2025/2026 were down 41 percent from the previous week and 44 percent from the prior 4-week average. Export shipments of 322,600 MT were down 44 percent from the previous week and 26 percen...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Wheat, North America
feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat
20 February 2026 – Commentary

Market Commentary: Outside Market Noise, but Fundamentals Prevail

By Gary Blumenthal for Ag Perspectives

Overall economic data released earlier on Friday presented a mixed picture, and that was followed by a long-expected court ruling on Trump tariffs. This week had lots of geopolitical uncertainties, from a U.S. military buildup in the Middle East to peace talks between Russia and Ukraine going s...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Wheat, Livestock, North America
Image
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.

Learn about WPI Consulting

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