Commodities (rural and non-rural) account for a significant proportion of Australia’s exports. Even though tourism and manufactured exports have grown strongly in recent years, earnings from commodities were around two thirds of total export earnings from goods and services in 1991/92. This was despite the cyclically low level of prices. Furthermore, the volatility of commodity prices is an imp...

The commodity markets have been bidding for acreage due to increased corn and soybean demand for biofuels. Currently, the major decision facing producers is determining the enterprise mix for 2008 in the midst of higher commodity prices. This memo compares the Return over Variable Costs for soybeans and peanuts and analyzes the break-even yields and prices for non-irrigated and irrigated produc...