If there is any doubt whether or not agriculture is a key constituency for Republicans generally, and the President specifically, in 2020, consider that the White House has scheduled President Trump to address the American Farm Bureau Federation convention which convenes this weekend for the third year in a row. Notably, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will accompany the President. Wheeler is unpopular with corn and biofuels crowd; why would he be there if not to smooth over ruffled feathers on the topic of biofuels and small refinery exemptions (SREs)? It will be worth keeping an ear tuned to Wheeler’s comments to learn of any coming EPA action that could be bullish to biofuel use. Perhaps there will be comments r...
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.
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...