Greening Agriculture Washington and Brussels share the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions but are taking two very different approaches when it comes to agriculture. The EU has just reached agreement on a complex approach that would restrict the use of inputs and envisions redirecting part of its production to the creation of ecological services. By contrast, the Biden Administration wants to pay producers to stop tilling the soil and plant cover crops. Europe’s approach has been somewhat divisive. The Irish Farmers Association sees Europe’s approach has devastating to the industry and says, “Our EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski has done nothing to protect farmers and food production in these...
Key Takeaways: The CME Group is launching new 90 percent Lean Beef and 50 percent Lean Beef futures and options contracts in July. There are five key factors that must be present in physical markets and futures contract specifications for futures contracts to become successful. The two l...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
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.