Another Bailout Package for Sugar Sector The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a third package to bail out the sugar industry. Worth $758 million, it includes a freight subsidy for sugar exports of up to 5 MMT and $1.89/MT on cane crushed in 2018/19. The first package, valued at $1.16 billion, was announced in June 2018 and included loans at a lower rate of interest. The second package provided soft loans for investment in ethanol production facilities, a higher ethanol price for blending and the storage cost for 3 MMT of sugar. 2017/18 has been an unprecedented sugar year (October-September). Due to high production of 32 MMT, stable demand at 25-26 MMT and higher carryover stocks, the sugar industry was unable to...
Weather concerns and the impacts of the war in Iran helped push wheat and corn to sharp gains Tuesday, with both markets blowing past key technical resistance levels. The weather is now coupled with geopolitical tensions that look increasingly hard to resolve, which is giving funds the perfect...
Congress is moving forward with its FY 2027 spending bills, while also still working to address FY 2026 funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which is still in a shutdown. The House Agriculture-FDA Appropriations Subcommittee marked up and passed its FY 2027 bill. The House bill prov...
The overarching concern for China is that the rising cost of energy will reduce global trade demand at the same time that countries are becoming more protectionist. Trump Visit to China President Trump’s visit to China is in just over two weeks, though some question whether the trip...
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.