News Updates ZIMBABWE TO DOUBLE WHEAT CROP The Zimbabwean government wants to double the local wheat crop, though its increase to 75,000 MT seems very small relative to the 400,000 MT of wheat it imports every year to meet local demand. According to the government, last year's crop was just over 35,000 MT; however, farmers said the total was closer to 12,000 MT. The area planted to wheat has dropped dramatically in recent years as the government has been promoting corn's importance as a food grain.Meanwhile, reports indicate that the drought has cut the local corn crop by 50 percent. The government had hoped for a crop as good as the 1.35 MMT harvested last year, a year when Zimbabwe was able to export a little bit of corn.It is estimated...
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
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.