Regional News EU cattle markets remain relatively unchanged from recent weeks, with German and Austrian prices falling slightly amid carnival-period reduced interest. EU hog and pig markets have started to stabilize, with the “backlog” of market-ready animals largely cleared now. France and Italy are still seeing an overhang of supplies that is keeping prices on the defensive, but nearly all other markets are firming on steady export demand. Polish fruit producers are worried after recent cold weather (temps as low as -20°C) swept through the country over the past two weeks. The temperatures have reportedly not been seen for the fruit-growing region for the past 12–14 years and are causing concerns ab...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. dollar continued to strengthen Thursday as persistent inflation reinforced expectations for additional Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Higher Treasury yields have helped support the dollar, potentially reducing the competitiveness of U.S. agricultural...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk freight markets were stronger this week, but the rally was uneven and due to divergent dynamics across basins and vessel classes. Panamax markets were broadly higher, but Atlantic grain demand was primarily responsible while Asian activity was subdued. That trend...
From WPI Consulting
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.