World Perspectives

Recent Asia Analysis

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 13 December)

Ocean Freight Comments - 13 December 2024By Matt HerringtonDry bulk freight markets are in the middle of the holiday-season slowdown with thin and very quiet trade characterizing what little market activity is present. The peak demand period from the North American grain harvest has now past bu...

soy-oilseeds

WASDE Soybeans - Nov 2024

WASDE Soybeans – USDA’s latest November estimate for the 2024/25 season is a decrease of 80 million bushels in U.S. soybean ending stocks to 470 million bushels. The U.S. season-average soybean price for 2024/25 is forecast unchanged at $10.80 per bushel. The soybean meal price is unchanged at...

wheat

WASDE Wheat - Nov 2024

WASDE Wheat – USDA’s latest November estimate for the 2024/25 season is for an increase in U.S. wheat ending stocks by 3 million bushels to 815 million, up 17 percent from last year. U.S. wheat exports are unchanged at 825 million bushels. The season-average farm price is lowered $0.10 per bush...

feed-grains wheat

Bangladesh Food Import Projection

Bangladesh is the third largest food importer in the world. It imports over $15 billion worth of food annually or about 11 percent of its total food consumption. Imports include 5 MMT of grain (3.57 MMT is wheat), plus palm oil, milk powder, and other products. Roughly 3.5 percent of its food i...

Interactive Ocean Freight Rates (Updated 9 August)

*** Developer Note ***This app is deprecated as of 13 August 2024 and will no longer be updated. Ocean Freight Comments - 9 August 2024By Matt HerringtonDry-bulk markets continue to chop sideways with gains one week yielding losses the next before gains emerge again. This past week was one...

softs

Perceived Rice Shortage

Rice prices have begun to normalize after spiking recently due to India fearing a shortage and imposing export restrictions. This sparked panic buying and resulted in higher prices. The price of rice early this year was around $602/MT, substantially higher than the historical average of $381/MT...

livestock

Evolving Markets

Anyone knowledgeable about the complexity of animal agriculture, and the general public’s weariness about the husbandry and slaughter processes knows that the future is cultivated or lab-grown meat. It is the reason why some of the largest and early investors in this technology have been...

feed-grains

Japan Boosts Corn and Protein

Japan’s population is declining by a half percent per year and will be 2 million smaller this year than in 2020. Nearly a third of the population is over 65 years of age, adding to the lower food demand factors. Yet the latest Global Agricultural Information Network report from the Foreig...

softs

Eat Your Rice

South Korea wants more rice to be consumed and is subsidizing rice for college students, the cohort least likely to eat breakfast, and is incentivizing food products made from rice flour. Rice production is dropping as population growth has stalled, but rice consumption is dropping even faster...

wheat

Grain Substitution

Grain producers saw the value of their output fall in 2023 and the best they can hope for in 2024 is to stem the bleeding. Meanwhile, Europeans are frustrated as the price of cocoa has risen more than 50 percent over the past year. Asians are frightened as the price of rice has risen nearly 40...

wheat

Fostering Rice for Flour Unsustainable

South Korea has had a problem. Its farmers insist on growing rice while its consumers are increasingly switching consumption to wheat-based products. For the second time in recent years the government has contrived a subsidy plan to reduce rice output in favor of wheat or soybeans. It provides...

wheat softs

Tangential Rice Market Impacts

Given current tight global rice stocks and high prices (see graph below), the question is how much wheat will be substituted for food or feed use. Rice prices have dropped since their peak early this year, but wheat is still 35 percent cheaper by weight than rice as a food grain. It is one reas...

feed-grains

Vietnam’s Steady Growth

USDA/FAS forecasts Vietnam’s feed demand to grow to 26.6 MMT. This is largely pushed by a 3.3 percent expansion in pig production, and poultry rising by 2.3 percent. The overall economy is forecast to grow by 5 percent this year. Over the most recent four-year period, soybean imports are...

softs

Rice Signals Future

Global rice stocks are down just 2.7 percent this year, but the drop is larger in key rice consuming countries, plus the largest rice exporting nation, India, imposed an export restriction. This has caused an exaggerated response in price with global values rising 29 percent year-on-year. ...

softs

Rice Constrained

The Philippines Department of Agriculture announced the need to import another 500 KMT of rice. The country is already the second largest importer of rice after China, and this purchase will ensure it is a record year for Philippine imports. For most staple commodities, this is not a large volu...

farm-inputs

Similarities of Farming and Manufacturing

Debate around the reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill is focused on the legislation’s two major functions, domestic food assistance and farm price supports. The former involves Republicans trying to reduce the most generous portions of what amounts to 81 percent of farm bill spending, a...

wheat

Türkiye’s Higher Wheat Flour Exports

Türkiye is the world’s largest exporter of wheat flour, and the International Grains Council says the country will export a record 5.4 MMT in MY 2023/24. That is up 12.5 percent from MY 2022/23. Part of the reason is a bumper domestic wheat crop based largely on higher yield. Rains a...

Forever Poor

Dhaka’s The Daily Star reports that Bangladesh seeks to avoid the increased trade disciplines that comes with the country’s elevation above least developed status. Except for the covid lockdown period, Bangladesh’s economy has been growing at 7 percent or better each year. Off...

livestock

South Korean Beef Supply

South Korea imposed increased inspection requirements on U.S> supplied beef following the finding of an atypical BSE case in South Carolina. Atypical cases occur spontaneously and, importantly, rarely. The U.S. remains in the category of being a negligible risk for BSE according to World Org...

North Korea Food Policy

North Korea has managed to produce the largest undernourished population of any country, 41.6 percent. Like supporters of Cuba, some blame U.S. sanctions policy, although food is excluded from any restrictions. Joseph Yi at Hanyang University in Seoul calls for resuming aid and supplying aid wo...

softs

No Rice Crisis

The Economist magazine notes that rice yields are not improving very quickly and that the International Rice Research Institute says that it is the food commodity perhaps most vulnerable to climate change. It is also a major contributor to climate change due to its methane emissions and yet con...

softs

Thailand Rice Exports

Thai government official Anucha Burapachaisri said the target for rice exports has been raised to 7.5 MMT. The official cited both higher domestic production, and a rebounding global economy that has elevated the value of rice. In truth, Thai rice exports are highly correlated to production, wh...

soy-oilseeds

Dreaming of Soybeans

Like many other countries that import soybeans, South Korea is hoping to become more self-sufficient in this oilseed. However, hope runs straight into the limits of geography. Right now the country produces about 9 percent of the 1.44 MMT of soybeans it consumes. Its agricultural area of 1.698...

softs

Declining Population Impacts Consumption

According to USDA, South Korea’s government is taking steps to stop the price of rice from falling and to slow over-production. There will be payments to farmers for reducing planted area by 5.1 percent, and increased government purchases of rice at more than one-fifth of the crop. The pr...

FOB Prices and Freight Rates App (Updated 13 December)

Ocean Freight Comments - 13 December 2024By Matt HerringtonDry bulk freight markets are in the middle of the holiday-season slowdown with thin and very quiet trade characterizing what little market activity is present. The peak demand period from the North American grain harvest has now past bu...

soy-oilseeds

WASDE Soybeans - Nov 2024

WASDE Soybeans – USDA’s latest November estimate for the 2024/25 season is a decrease of 80 million bushels in U.S. soybean ending stocks to 470 million bushels. The U.S. season-average soybean price for 2024/25 is forecast unchanged at $10.80 per bushel. The soybean meal price is unchanged at...

wheat

WASDE Wheat - Nov 2024

WASDE Wheat – USDA’s latest November estimate for the 2024/25 season is for an increase in U.S. wheat ending stocks by 3 million bushels to 815 million, up 17 percent from last year. U.S. wheat exports are unchanged at 825 million bushels. The season-average farm price is lowered $0.10 per bush...

feed-grains wheat

Bangladesh Food Import Projection

Bangladesh is the third largest food importer in the world. It imports over $15 billion worth of food annually or about 11 percent of its total food consumption. Imports include 5 MMT of grain (3.57 MMT is wheat), plus palm oil, milk powder, and other products. Roughly 3.5 percent of its food i...

Interactive Ocean Freight Rates (Updated 9 August)

*** Developer Note ***This app is deprecated as of 13 August 2024 and will no longer be updated. Ocean Freight Comments - 9 August 2024By Matt HerringtonDry-bulk markets continue to chop sideways with gains one week yielding losses the next before gains emerge again. This past week was one...

softs

Perceived Rice Shortage

Rice prices have begun to normalize after spiking recently due to India fearing a shortage and imposing export restrictions. This sparked panic buying and resulted in higher prices. The price of rice early this year was around $602/MT, substantially higher than the historical average of $381/MT...

livestock

Evolving Markets

Anyone knowledgeable about the complexity of animal agriculture, and the general public’s weariness about the husbandry and slaughter processes knows that the future is cultivated or lab-grown meat. It is the reason why some of the largest and early investors in this technology have been...

feed-grains

Japan Boosts Corn and Protein

Japan’s population is declining by a half percent per year and will be 2 million smaller this year than in 2020. Nearly a third of the population is over 65 years of age, adding to the lower food demand factors. Yet the latest Global Agricultural Information Network report from the Foreig...

softs

Eat Your Rice

South Korea wants more rice to be consumed and is subsidizing rice for college students, the cohort least likely to eat breakfast, and is incentivizing food products made from rice flour. Rice production is dropping as population growth has stalled, but rice consumption is dropping even faster...

wheat

Grain Substitution

Grain producers saw the value of their output fall in 2023 and the best they can hope for in 2024 is to stem the bleeding. Meanwhile, Europeans are frustrated as the price of cocoa has risen more than 50 percent over the past year. Asians are frightened as the price of rice has risen nearly 40...

wheat

Fostering Rice for Flour Unsustainable

South Korea has had a problem. Its farmers insist on growing rice while its consumers are increasingly switching consumption to wheat-based products. For the second time in recent years the government has contrived a subsidy plan to reduce rice output in favor of wheat or soybeans. It provides...

wheat softs

Tangential Rice Market Impacts

Given current tight global rice stocks and high prices (see graph below), the question is how much wheat will be substituted for food or feed use. Rice prices have dropped since their peak early this year, but wheat is still 35 percent cheaper by weight than rice as a food grain. It is one reas...

feed-grains

Vietnam’s Steady Growth

USDA/FAS forecasts Vietnam’s feed demand to grow to 26.6 MMT. This is largely pushed by a 3.3 percent expansion in pig production, and poultry rising by 2.3 percent. The overall economy is forecast to grow by 5 percent this year. Over the most recent four-year period, soybean imports are...

softs

Rice Signals Future

Global rice stocks are down just 2.7 percent this year, but the drop is larger in key rice consuming countries, plus the largest rice exporting nation, India, imposed an export restriction. This has caused an exaggerated response in price with global values rising 29 percent year-on-year. ...

softs

Rice Constrained

The Philippines Department of Agriculture announced the need to import another 500 KMT of rice. The country is already the second largest importer of rice after China, and this purchase will ensure it is a record year for Philippine imports. For most staple commodities, this is not a large volu...

farm-inputs

Similarities of Farming and Manufacturing

Debate around the reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill is focused on the legislation’s two major functions, domestic food assistance and farm price supports. The former involves Republicans trying to reduce the most generous portions of what amounts to 81 percent of farm bill spending, a...

wheat

Türkiye’s Higher Wheat Flour Exports

Türkiye is the world’s largest exporter of wheat flour, and the International Grains Council says the country will export a record 5.4 MMT in MY 2023/24. That is up 12.5 percent from MY 2022/23. Part of the reason is a bumper domestic wheat crop based largely on higher yield. Rains a...

Forever Poor

Dhaka’s The Daily Star reports that Bangladesh seeks to avoid the increased trade disciplines that comes with the country’s elevation above least developed status. Except for the covid lockdown period, Bangladesh’s economy has been growing at 7 percent or better each year. Off...

livestock

South Korean Beef Supply

South Korea imposed increased inspection requirements on U.S> supplied beef following the finding of an atypical BSE case in South Carolina. Atypical cases occur spontaneously and, importantly, rarely. The U.S. remains in the category of being a negligible risk for BSE according to World Org...

North Korea Food Policy

North Korea has managed to produce the largest undernourished population of any country, 41.6 percent. Like supporters of Cuba, some blame U.S. sanctions policy, although food is excluded from any restrictions. Joseph Yi at Hanyang University in Seoul calls for resuming aid and supplying aid wo...

softs

No Rice Crisis

The Economist magazine notes that rice yields are not improving very quickly and that the International Rice Research Institute says that it is the food commodity perhaps most vulnerable to climate change. It is also a major contributor to climate change due to its methane emissions and yet con...

softs

Thailand Rice Exports

Thai government official Anucha Burapachaisri said the target for rice exports has been raised to 7.5 MMT. The official cited both higher domestic production, and a rebounding global economy that has elevated the value of rice. In truth, Thai rice exports are highly correlated to production, wh...

soy-oilseeds

Dreaming of Soybeans

Like many other countries that import soybeans, South Korea is hoping to become more self-sufficient in this oilseed. However, hope runs straight into the limits of geography. Right now the country produces about 9 percent of the 1.44 MMT of soybeans it consumes. Its agricultural area of 1.698...

softs

Declining Population Impacts Consumption

According to USDA, South Korea’s government is taking steps to stop the price of rice from falling and to slow over-production. There will be payments to farmers for reducing planted area by 5.1 percent, and increased government purchases of rice at more than one-fifth of the crop. The pr...

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