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 Foreign Agricultural Service indicates Japan’s corn imports and consumption will be the highest since 2020/21. This is occurring at the same time wheat and rice consumption contracted the way demographics suggest they should. The difference is that the nation’s poultry flocks are recovering after avian influenza caused 1.6 percent drop in the flock in 2022. FAO data indicates the animal protein supply has increased even as the population has go...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
A federal appeals court paused a USITC ruling against President Trump’s use of Section 122 to impose 10-percent global tariffs. A bipartisan group of 80 House members asked USTR to investigate specialty crop imports from Mexico for unfair trade practices. India notified the WT...
Russian Grain Markets: 4 - 8 May 2026 During the week under review, the Russian grain market began showing more bullish sentiment despite the traditionally slow pace of business during the May holiday period. Russia celebrates several holidays during early May, with Victory Day on 9 May being t...
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.