In the Agri-food Executive Briefing for the week, seven items are highlighted on ‘the watchlist':
- Inflation
- November Consumer Price Index (CPI) print is expected at 7.3% on Tuesday, December 13th .
- Interest Rates
- Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates 50 bps to 4.25% to 4.50% on Wednesday, December 14th
- Fertilizer Prices
- Six of eight major fertilizer prices tracked by DTN / Progressive Farmer have fallen in December concurrent with a decline in crude oil prices.
- Soybean Exports
- Bean exports to China are at a 3-month high and were particularly large last week. Will this trend continue?
- Drought
- Warm/dry weather in Argentina will hurt soybean planting and therefore production…AND….meal exports (Arg. Is the #1 meal exporter.)
- China
- Last week the People’s Republic scrapped mass COVID testing / quarantine centers after the protests/riots. Is this for real?
- Geopolitics
- What will Russian’s increasingly close relationship with Iran and North Korea mean militarily for the Ukraine conflict?
Numbers of interest
9,10 During the first 9 days of December, crude oil has fallen by ~ $10
$2.97 Price per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in St. Louis this week; AAA’s national average is now $3.32, down from $3.81 month/month.
22% Expected increase in global biofuel demand over the next 5 years according to International Energy Agency (IEA)
43.9 SovCon’s estimate for Russian wheat exports in million metric tons, the 2nd highest on record for any country.
73% Percentage of U.S. winter wheat acres experiencing a drought, up from 53% at the end of August.
-47% Decline in U.S. cotton prices from 11-year peak levels reached in 2021
$69,470 Price of lithium per metric ton, a material used in electric vehicles, up about 300% during the past year
36.6 Size of Australia’s record wheat crop (MMT)
Here are four articles of interest:
Chinese Exports Fall at Steep Pace
Russian Oligarch Seizes 400,000 Acres of Ukrainian Farmland, Owners Say
Soil In Midwestern U.S. Is Eroding 10 to 1,000 Times Faster Than It Forms, Study Finds
Kenneth Scott Zuckerberg is Lead Industry Analyst, Grains, Farm Supply & Biofuels, CoBank. Zuckerberg is an accomplished financial strategist that serves as the lead analyst for grains, farm supply, and biofuels within CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange. Ken brings more than 30 years of diverse experience spanning industry research, equity and capital structure analysis, and investment management.
