Today was National Agriculture Trade Day, an effort to boost awareness about the benefits of trade to the sector. However, the milestone also sparked debate about the increasing U.S. agricultural trade deficit, and the advisability of the Trump tariff war. President Trump’s goal is...
Russian Grain Markets: 10 – 14 March 2025 Probably for the first time in recent history the Russian Ministry of Agriculture has announced crop production in Russia including “new territories” (occupied territories of Ukraine). The Ministry reported that during 2024, grain prod...
Transportation and Freight Market Comments - 14 March 2025 By Matt Herrington Dry-Bulk Ocean Freight Dry-bulk markets were mostly sideways last week with neither buyers nor sellers wanting to make big moves amid the political and tariff uncertainty. The rapid changes to U.S. trade policy and ta...
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.