Waunaque
Wandering around with a bag of matchlight, looking for a match.
I know I'm not the only guy here involved with farming and crop prices, but figure people in this thread are interested in info about what's driving meat prices. I read tonight that Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer and a company familiar to many here, will import soybeans and corn from Brazil. The writer figures it's because it's cheaper to get Brazilian grains here by ship than to get U.S. grains to the East Coast by rail. Currency markets are also playing into it with the Brazil Real dropping against the US Dollar so far this year. Some big grain buyers estimate more than 90% of Brazilian beans have already been sold compared to less than 50% at this time in an average year. It'll be interesting (maybe more painful) to see how pork prices change over the next few months as corn and syobean harvests come in.