All segments of agriculture have been hugely profitable during this six-seven year bull market, but there are potentially negative consequences for many going forward if the current low price environment continues.I attended a meeting last week held by an agricultural consultant with clients that are primarily in the middle level of the agricultural food chain. These include shuttle grain loading elevators, larger seed/chemical/fertilizer companies and some large producers. The purpose of the consultant's meeting was to prompt his clients to at least begin thinking about the implications going forward if the current low price environment continues. The low prices that he is referring to are not $3-4 corn and $8-9 soybeans but rather $4-5 co...
What You Need to Know Today: Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans continued to accelerate, with USDA reporting another 558 KMT sold to China and 236 KMT to unknown destinations. Combined with sales announced Wednesday and Thursday, the latest purchases bring the three-day total to approximately...
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.