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How Does Structural Change in the Global Soybean Market Affect the U.S. Price? South American soybean production, combined with the U.S. soybean stocks-to-use ratio, provides a strong basis for forecasting U.S. soybean prices. South American soybean production accounts for much of the global structural change that has altered the relationships among U.S. soybean production, use, stocks, and price.

recommended readings
Many factors determine the Structure of the Global Markets for Meat, including the relative availability of resources for raising and processing animals for meat. Countries' preferences for various cuts of meat provide opportunities for international trade.

International Evidence on Food Consumption Patterns. Analysis of major consumption expenditures across 114 countries indicates that poorer countries are more responsive to price and income changes and also allocate larger shares of their total budget to necessities such as food.

Agriculture in Brazil and Argentina: Developments and Prospects for Major Field Crops. Recent increases in international competitiveness by Argentine and Brazilian grain and soybean producers likely foreshadow continued global trade-share gains, particularly for soybeans and soybean products. Macroeconomic and policy developments, particularly those related to exchange rates, and infrastructure improvements will remain central to each country's future prospects.

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recommended data products
Production, Supply, and Distribution (PS&D) contains official USDA data on production, supply, and distribution of agricultural commodities for the United States and major importing and exporting countries. The database provides projections for the coming year and historical data for more than 200 countries and major crop, livestock, fishery, and forest products.

Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States (FATUS) provides U.S. agricultural exports and imports, volume and value, by country, by commodity, and by calendar year, fiscal year, and month, for varying periods, such as 1935 to the present or 1989 to the present. Updated monthly or annually.

WTO Agricultural Trade Policy Commitments Database contains data on implementation of trade policy commitments by WTO member countries. Data on domestic support, export subsidies, and tariffs are organized for comparison across countries. This queriable database offers various options for viewing and downloading data.

Agricultural Market Access Database (AMAD) is a publicly available information tool for analyzing WTO market access issues in agriculture. It contains data and information on WTO member countries, including tariff schedules, tariff bindings, applied tariff rates, country notifications to the WTO, import quantities, and other data useful in tariff analysis.

related briefing rooms
Soybeans and oil crops
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Agricultural baseline projections
U.S. agricultural trade

related links
Additional data and information on Brazil are available from USDA, other U.S. government sources, international organizations, and the Brazilian government.

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for more information, contact: Constanza Valdes or Mary Burfisher
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: May 11, 2004