Iran is a major importer of grains and vegetable oil, but its estrangement is getting worse. Now the EU has joined the U.S. in imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The watershed was the death last month of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of Tehran’s morality police known as the Guidance Patrol. She had been arrested for not wearing the hijab head covering mandatory for all women. Relatively large protests followed her murder and indicated the potential for future political changes based on important demographic changes in the country. China had its one child policy, but it is Iran that experienced the fastest drop off in population growth. Moreover, women are the now concurrently the most educate...
What You Need to Know Today: CBOT markets pared Monday’s sharp losses as traders booked short profits and adjusted positions ahead of the Grain Stocks report that USDA will release Wednesday afternoon. The 7-day QPF forecast from NOAA now shows heavy rain across the central and western C...
Key Takeaways: Comparative advantage encourages countries to specialize in goods they can produce at a lower opportunity cost and rely on trade for others. Differences in climate, land, infrastructure, and technology help determine where agricultural commodities can be produced most efficientl...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Iran is reported to have completed its rail link from the border with Afghanistan to the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman — the link is expected to be fully operational in early 2027. This will be Afghanistan&rsq...
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.