Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS The latest USDA-FAS report on Turkish grains indicates that better rainfall through February 2019 versus the two previous years should result in higher crop yields, although winter crops may not be up overall due to the smaller planted area in late 2018. For wheat, 2018/19 production is expected to total 19.MMT with wheat imports at 5.5 MMT and wheat/flour exports at 6.5 MMT, and all are expected to remain at the same levels in 2019/20. Meanwhile, barley production is projected to reach 7 MMT in 2018/19 and then increase to 8 MMT in 2019/20 (Turkey does not import or export barley.) Looking at corn, the forecast has production at 5.7 MMT and imports at 2.2 MMT in 2018/19 with a drop to 5...
What You Need to Know Today: After a period of limited activity, USDA reported a sizeable 613 KMT in soybean export sales, including 330 KMT to China and 283 KMT to unknown destinations, potentially also China. The purchases represent a meaningful pickup in demand and bring China closer to ful...
Key Takeaways: Consumer spending is a key driver of the U.S. economy, and the latest retail sales data indicate that spending remains robust despite inflation. In September, total retail and food service sales rose more than 6 percent year-over-year, with food service spending up 7 percent and...
The Trump import plan for 300,000 MT of beef supplies used for ground beef, i.e., lean trim, from September through November has, according to Secretary Brooke Rollins, brought some relief to beef prices. The Executive Order states that the Secretary of Agriculture will analyze and review the m...
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.