Egypt’s General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) purchased 470 KMT of wheat today. It will come from four countries: Romania, France, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. Russia is notably absent. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was re-elected with 90 percent of the vote and is now forming a new government. His gift to his supporters is a 300 percent increase in the price of heavily subsidized bread. The consumer share of the price will still be a fraction of the government’s costs. However, something needs to give. The nation’s population is growing by 1.2 percent each year, and yet wheat imports and domestic production are flat, as are rice and poultry. Hunger is considered moderate in Egypt but overall supplies...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
Key Takeaways: The Panama Canal’s draft restrictions and decreasing rainfall outlook are driving big moves in dry bulk markets this week. Panamax markets are sharply lower as the economics of moving freight across the Canal are deteriorating rapidly, leading to support in Supramax vessels...