Maize is often called King Corn because of its dominance in planted production in the U.S. but the real king in terms of price has been vegetable oil. Prices are up 100 percent from just a year ago and are at nose-bleed territory. Ukrainian crude sunflower oil has particularly gotten out ahead of competing oils. Its price premium is currently 27 percent ahead of soyoil, 68 percent higher than palm oil and even 21 percent above sunoil next door in Russia. That contrasts with a year ago when Ukrainian sunoil was at a 9.2 percent premium to soyoil, an 11.5 percent premium to palm oil and just 3.7 percent more than Russian sunoil. One thing that is clear is that neither overall vegetable oil prices nor the premium in Ukrainian sunoil are susta...
What You Need to Know Today: President Trump claimed the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was over, as both sides accused one another of violating the terms of the agreement. Commercial vessels are increasingly steering clear of the Strait of Hormuz as security risks escalate following Iran...
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...
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...
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.