The stay at home orders and fear of a pandemic caused a run on groceries. Several countries-imposed food export restrictions and collectively this elicited news stories recalling the great food shortage situation in 2006/07. That “shortage” started when India had a short rice crop and the Philippines, followed by many other countries, stared importing extra grain to build food security stocks. The price of rice more than tripled. That was then, but not now when it comes to the available buffer supply of grain. Back in 2006/07, the world carryover for rice had fallen in half compared to 2002 and the surplus of wheat had made a similar decline. But global ending stocks of rice are now at 34 percent, more than double the 2006/07 l...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.