Markets opened weak again Sunday evening. Corn and soybeans were down 3-4 cents and 8-9 cents, respectively. Meanwhile, wheat was 3 cents lower in KC while down 1-2 cents in Chicago and Minneapolis. The lower prices reflected the lack of any apparent progress in U.S.-China trade talks last Friday with no resumption scheduled, although both sides said the negotiations will continue. World equity markets were also very weak Sunday evening, and U.S. equity futures were down 1-2 percent. In addition, China announced its intentions to raise tariffs in retaliation to the U.S. increases indicated by President Trump. The markets were also still struggling under the weight of last Friday’s bearish USDA supply/demand estimates of higher ending...
Energy: Risk Over Rules Fighting between the United States and Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz escalated overnight. Tehran accused U.S. forces of striking a residential area after U.S. Central Command said its second round of attacks in three days targeted Iranian radar systems and mi...
Key Takeaways: Ghana’s new law classifies all cocoa plantations as “protected farms,” which carries significant implications for farmers. Chief among these implications is the inability to switch area under cocoa to other crops, even when economic or biological conditio...
Key Takeaways: Paraguay typically ranks among the world’s largest soybean exporters, with roughly two-thirds of its production destined for export markets, although most shipments remain within South America. As a landlocked country, Paraguay relies heavily on the Paraguay-Paraná...
From WPI Consulting
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.