Siloed Everywhere International trade has become moral, geopolitical, and nationalistic, and so has local commerce. Global trade is now based on perceived and relative practices such as human rights, animal welfare, labor, environmental protection, etc. Don’t trade with autocrat regimes like China or Russia. There is Make in India, Buy America, food sovereignty, etc. This has crept down to state and local affairs. California dictates how hogs are produced in Iowa and bans state-funded travel to Texas. Fights over abortion, immigration and other issues pour over red versus blue states, and between cities and rural areas. All of it worsening economic outcomes but unlikely to go away anytime soon. Separately, EU plans to punish a...
What You Need to Know Today: There is a global rotation out of tech stocks right now amid profit-taking and expectations of interest rate hikes later this year. The White House said Iran will use its upcoming unsanctioned oil revenue to buy U.S. agricultural products, a claim that Iran later s...
USDA will release its Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report on Thursday. Below are analysts’ estimates for the report. The biggest change since the 1 March report is the number of market hogs, which is expected to be up 1.1 percent from what was implied in March. The percent increase in hogs we...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to -$243/head last week, down $25 from the prior week as higher fed cattle prices more than offset a slight decline in the Choice cutout. The cutout eased to $390/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed to $260/cwt - just of all-time highs - extending the seasonal s...
From WPI Consulting
Infrastructure investment due diligence
On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.