According to the latest USDA country brief, Saudi Arabia will import just over 17 MMT of grain in 2015/16: 8.5 MMT of barley, 3.5 MMT of corn, 3.3 MMT of wheat and 1.5 MMT of rice. The government is hoping to reduce barley imports by promoting more use of prepared feeds, although the purpose of this effort is questionable. Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/ MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS The Lebanese government is taking legal action with regard to Russian wheat shipments that have tested too high for ochratoxin, which was found to be three to five times above the allowed levels. Ochratoxin is a type of mycotoxin and is considered a possible carcinogen in humans. The country’s health minister has called for a ban on Russian wheat, but this has not be...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
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.