USDA’s November slaughter data helps decode some of the outlook for 2026. There are the known knowns - cattle and hog numbers are down, weights are up, and the breeding inventory for cattle is growing while for hogs it remains constant. But stabilized dairy cow slaughter, lower sow slaugh...
The CBOT traded mostly lower on Tuesday with funds remaining dedicated sellers. The motivation for their selling stems partially from pre-holiday risk-off trading and partially from the technical weakness enveloping the charts. Corn was the downside leader for the second straight day, though ob...
Grain Utilization Grain market prices have been cooling of late due to the prospects of a large South American crop, but China is also cited as an influence. Sinograin has been auctioning soybeans and it may also be releasing some of its reserves of corn into the market. Corn and wheat are bein...
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.