Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa Regional Analysis Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS Afghanistan is facing its lowest wheat crop since 2011 due to the lack of rain and snowfall. Forecasts say that the country could need to import as much as 2.5 MMT in 2018. Not only are the people facing a food shortage, but the lack of rainfall has badly affected the grazing land for sheep and goats with tens of thousands reported to have died. The wheat shortage is so serious that farmers are said to be eating their planting seeds for the crop. Afghanistan has a history of major droughts occurring about every nine-11 years. However, the current situation is expected to improve later in the year, although it will be much too late...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.