...Supply Surpluses Holding Prices Lower Fitch sees the current low pricing environment in key agricultural commodities -- corn, soybeans and wheat -- sustained into the coming year given abundant supplies and promising current crops. Generally, supplies remain abundant with global stocks of wheat and soybeans estimated to increase through 2015/2016, and worldwide corn supplies increasing this year and declining around 4% in 2015/2016, according to USDA's September WASDE report. Fitch expects increased capacity utilization to drive solid operational performance across the large agribusiness companies, especially as large U.S. harvests come to market in the second half of the year. Shifting to Meet Consumer Trends Agribusiness commodity firms are in various phases of addressing the growing consumer demand for healthy food products. The organic (natural, non-GMO, gluten-free, etc.) market exists on the fringe of the major commodity markets, and was traditionally serviced by niche processing...
