General Comments Greece and weather dominated grain and soy markets today. Another parliamentary election will be held in June because Greek political parties were unable to form a government. Observers fear that a new election will not resolve the impasse and that Greece may be forced to drop the euro as its currency. Realistically, this would be a disaster for Greece, but the impact on other eurozone countries would be limited. Nevertheless, the Greek situation obscured the fact that the German economy actually grew 0.5 percent last quarter while France's economy was flat. Both countries avoided two negative quarters in a row, which would have put them in a technical recession. The dollar hit a four-month high versus the euro, which di...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.