At the end of July 2024, WPI published an article looking at the drivers of the cocoa market’s massive rally in 2023 and 2024 and that offered an outlook for MY 2024/25. This article offers a brief update on market conditions and developments that have occurred in the two months since our last analysis. Short-Run Dynamics ICE cocoa futures have rallied sharply this week with the March contract up $669/MT amid tighter global stockpiles, currency dynamics, and West African cocoa production. ICE-monitored cocoa inventories in U.S. ports have been trending lower for the past 15 months and hit a 15-year low on Tuesday at 1.998 million bags. London cocoa futures also added to their gains this week when the British pounds slipp...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk markets are mixed this week with larger vessel classes seeing strong demand from iron ore and coal while Supramax and Handysize rates remain steady. Congestion at the Panama Canal has eased but forward booking slots are showing signs of bottlenecks as draft levels...
Key Takeaways: Ghana’s new law classifies all cocoa plantations as “protected farms,” which carries significant implications for farmers. Chief among these implications is the inability to switch area under cocoa to other crops, even when economic or biological conditio...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt, at the end of July, is once again the largest importer of maize from Brazil at about 2.6 million MT from January to July — followed by Iran at 1.1 MMT, Algeria at 665,000 MT, Saudi Arabia at 435,000 MT, and Israel at...
From WPI Consulting
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.