Russian Grain Markets: 30 December 2024 – 3 January 2025As of the end of 2024, Russian Statistics Agency (RosStat) statistics show “preliminary” grain crop size at 124.96 MMT without including occupied territories of Ukraine, but including annexed Crimea. RosStat can issue “preliminary” updates of the previous year’s crop all the way until the new harvest is ready. Sometimes, the final numbers are ready by the year’s end and sometimes by Q1 of the next year. Although the above number is not as impressive as last year’s 144.9 MMT (2023), it is still better than the five-year average of 134 MMT. Remember that the official forecast of the government was 130 MMT of which 83 MMT was wheat and that included occupied territories of Ukraine. T...
What You Need to Know Today: Agricultural commodities were mostly lower on the day, with red-hot soyoil a notable exception. Export sales were a bit underwhelming, particularly for corn with export sales down 52 percent week-over-week. The weakness in ag markets tracked crude oil weakness wit...
With the war in Iran affecting fuel and fertilizer prices, higher tariffs, weak commodity prices, ag labor constraints, and other factors, farm bankruptcies are now at a 6-year high, a signal of growing stress. During the month of April, 62 Chapter 12 bankruptcies were filed, which is a 1...
WPI recently completed an expansion of our methodology for estimating and forecasting U.S. and global soybean crushing margins. The new approach incorporates the energy market’s expanding influence on the oilseed sector and the structural changes in global biofuel demand. This report is i...
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Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.