Under normal circumstances, India's chickpea prices tend to move lower as arrivals peak. Contrary to that, though, NCDEX spot prices in New Delhi are up 18.61 percent and were at a peak on 18 April 2016 as well as 20.96 percent higher than the start of the season. Protein Demand for Pulses Boosts Prices India consumes more pulses/lentils than any other country, evidenced by the supply/demand gap of over 6.5 MMT as well as higher prices of pulses that increased 37 percent in February alone compared with wholesale prices that fell for the 17th month in a row in March. While the market arrivals of some pulses may have increased, those of chickpeas (aka bengal gram) have been slow. The government of India’s (GOI’s) 2nd Advance Estimates for P...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. launches naval escort operations in the Strait of Hormuz as Iran attacks UAE oil infrastructure, escalating geopolitical risk and supporting energy and broader commodity markets Biofuel demand entering uncharted territory, with soyoil valuation increasingly di...
The Middle East is said to be undergoing a transformation as economic priorities transcend security concerns. This is evidenced by diversification away from oil and the UAE’s departure from OPEC. Meanwhile, the Palestine issue has been deprioritized, and Iran has emerged as more destabili...
All eyes are shifting to the Senate following the House passage of a farm bill last Thursday. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Arkansas) is targeting the end of May or early June for a bill markup. According to Boozman, the House “going ahead and passing something was re...
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.