Argentine Farmers Holding Back Soybean Sales Argentina's farmers have been very reluctant to sell their crop because of high export taxes and a very low official currency exchange rate, despite harvesting a large soybean crop this year. The current export tax rate for soybeans is 35 percent and the official exchange rate with the dollar is 5.45 pesos to the USD. This compares to the black market rate of between 8 and 9 pesos to the USD. That means farmers are receiving only about 42 percent of the pesos they would receive if there were no export tax and the black market, or blue dollar, rate was used. It is understandable that farmers are only selling the minimum amount of soybeans to pay their bills rather than selling for pesos that...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.