World leaders express great concern that the level of world food insecurity is worsening under the weight of the Russian war on Ukraine. Then there are the multitude of different characterizations of the problem: food insecurity, hunger, undernourishment, etc. To the extent that it has worsened malnourishment is difficult to ascertain, though announcements of restricted exports could certainly heighten interpreted insecurity. Official collectors of such data, the FAO and World Bank have not published official data for 2020, let alone 2022. In 2019, they projected a rise in undernourishment for 2020, which was before COVID or the war in Ukraine. Global ending stocks of wheat, corn, and rice may have tightened of late, but they are still lar...
Russian Grain Markets: 29 June-3 July 2026 The new marketing season has officially begun in Russia, although bearish sentiment has been concentrated in the southern regions closest to the Black Sea ports, where export demand has been weakest. Delays in grain deliveries to inland elevators have...
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...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
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.