Regional News Last week’s commodity trade was executed under the duress of global market selloffs driven by the spreading coronavirus. This week’s trade is starting off on a firmer note with equities firming and helping reassure commodity markets. Today starts China’s ability to waive import tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods, which may start to alter global trade flows, depending on how liberal the government is with the waivers. Most of Europe’s winter crops are emerging/have emerged from dormancy due to a warmer-than-normal winter. The rate of emergence is about a month earlier than typical, leaving the crops vulnerable to a late freeze/frost. Analysts in Romania report that a recent cold snap in th...
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.
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...