Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS Reports from Syria indicate that thousands of acres of wheat have been destroyed by fire, attributed to arson by most accounts, and the crop losses are said to be valued at about $6 million. ISIS is said to have taken credit for those fires as well the recent ones in Iraqi wheat fields. Local fire departments in Syria have been unable to fight the fires as they are being set in many fields. In addition, their equipment is very limited. Before this occurred, the wheat crop had been expected to reach 1.5 MMT with the barley crop at 1 MMT. The FAO and the EU have announced a three-year program in Syria that is intended to improve smallholder agriculture by providing educational services an...
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.