Item 3. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK

The Company is exposed to various forms of market risk as a part of its ongoing business practices. The Company utilizes derivative instruments to mitigate earnings fluctuations due to market volatility.

Commodity Price Risk: The Company is subject to commodity price risk primarily through grain and live hog markets. To reduce these exposures and offset the fluctuations caused by changes in market conditions, the Company employs hedging programs. These programs utilize futures, swaps, and options and are accounted for as cash flow hedges. The fair value of the Company’s cash flow commodity contracts as of July 31, 2022, was $26.9 million compared to $25.2 million as of October 31, 2021. The Company measures its market risk exposure on its cash flow commodity contracts using a sensitivity analysis, which considers a hypothetical 10 percent change in the market prices. A 10 percent decrease in the market price would have negatively impacted the fair value of the Company's cash flow commodity contracts as of July 31, 2022, by $29.3 million, which in turn would lower the Company's future cost on purchased commodities by a similar amount.

Interest Rate Risk: The Company is subject to interest rate risk primarily from changes in fair value of long-term fixed rate debt. As of July 31, 2022, the Company’s long-term debt had a fair value of $3.0 billion compared to $3.3 billion as of October 31, 2021. The Company measures its market risk exposure of long-term fixed rate debt using a sensitivity analysis, which considers a 10 percent change in interest rates. A 10 percent decrease in interest rates would have positively impacted the fair value of the Company’s long-term debt as of July 31, 2022, by $80.1 million. A 10 percent increase would have negatively impacted the long-term debt by $75.5 million.

To reduce the risk of changes in fair value of long-term debt, the Company has entered into an interest rate swap on a portion of the debt that receives a fixed rate and pays a floating rate. The notional amount of the Company's interest rate swap is $450.0 million. The Company measures its market risk exposure on interest rate contracts using sensitivity analysis, which considers a hypothetical change of 25 basis points in the underlying benchmark interest rate. An increase of 25 basis points would have negatively impacted the fair value of the Company's interest rate swap by $1.8 million, while a decrease of 25 basis points would have positively impacted the value by a similar amount.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk: The fair values of certain Company assets are subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The Company's net asset position in foreign currencies as of July 31, 2022 was $667.1 million, compared to $657.2 million as of October 31, 2021, with most of the exposure existing in Chinese yuan and Brazilian real. The Company currently does not use market risk sensitive instruments to manage this risk.

Investment Risk: The Company has corporate-owned life insurance policies classified as trading securities as part of a rabbi trust to fund certain supplemental executive retirement plans and deferred income plans. As of July 31, 2022, the balance of these securities totaled $191.0 million compared to $203.0 million as of October 31, 2021. The rabbi trust is invested primarily in fixed income funds. The Company is subject to market risk due to fluctuations in the value of the remaining investments as unrealized gains and losses associated with these securities are included in the Company’s net earnings on a mark-to-market basis. A 10 percent decline in the value of the investments not held in fixed income funds would have a negative impact to the Company’s pretax earnings of approximately $8.1 million, while a 10 percent increase in value would have a positive impact of the same amount.