World Perspectives
farm-inputs

South America’s Fertilizer Situation

Rabobank reports that fertilizer supplies will improve in 2023 with downward pressure on phosphate and potash prices, but nitrogen may see a 20-30 percent price hike. This is an important competitiveness factor for agricultural exporters. North and South America both have abundant supplies of petroleum, though the North produces four times as much. Natural gas is a most efficient source for nitrogen, and North America annually produces more than five times as many terawatt-hour equivalents in natural gas than does South and Central America.  South America’s share of global agricultural trade is growing, provided food sovereignty movements and eco-protectionism doesn’t stop it. But at this juncture, the region is more depen...

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feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Market Stalls Waiting for South American Weather Definition

There were modest volumes on this last trading day of the week, except in soymeal and cattle where the goal was to get out of the former and into the latter. There were new contract highs, again, in cattle. Overall weakness was blamed on Argentina’s announced lower tax rates on commodity...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Tick Tock on South American Weather

TikTok is still operating but the tick tock on South American will eventually run out of time. Notable developments today included a lower open, but still plenty of strength. Corn remains up about a nickel for the week, beans up more than 30-cents and while wheat dipped today, the large gains l...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 22 January)

Ocean Freight Comments - 17 January 2025By Matt HerringtonIn the past month since WPI last provided our freight market commentary, dry bulk ocean freight rates have not done much at all. The holiday doldrums left markets to drift sideways/lower with slack cargo demand and little other excitemen...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Market Stalls Waiting for South American Weather Definition

There were modest volumes on this last trading day of the week, except in soymeal and cattle where the goal was to get out of the former and into the latter. There were new contract highs, again, in cattle. Overall weakness was blamed on Argentina’s announced lower tax rates on commodity...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Tick Tock on South American Weather

TikTok is still operating but the tick tock on South American will eventually run out of time. Notable developments today included a lower open, but still plenty of strength. Corn remains up about a nickel for the week, beans up more than 30-cents and while wheat dipped today, the large gains l...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 22 January)

Ocean Freight Comments - 17 January 2025By Matt HerringtonIn the past month since WPI last provided our freight market commentary, dry bulk ocean freight rates have not done much at all. The holiday doldrums left markets to drift sideways/lower with slack cargo demand and little other excitemen...

feed-grains soy-oilseeds wheat

Market Commentary: Give Us Our Daily Brake

Futures took a weather break today. The rain slated for Argentina and southern Brazil this weekend doesn’t appear monumental, but something is better than nothing, and something is all it takes to put brakes on a borderline market. The day’s trading closely tracked the overnight, with red showi...

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From WPI Consulting

Illuminating the value of technical research

On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.

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