Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt’s Central Bank has left interest rates unchanged, with the main operational interest rate standing at 27.75 percent per annum. Egypt and the EU have agreed on a €90 million European Investment Bank finance program to improve grain storage and logistics in Egypt. The funds will be used by Egypt’s GASC to “improve its capacity to import and store wheat”. Egypt’s grain/soybean production and imports for 2024/25, according to the International Grains Council, show wheat production increasing from 9.9 MMT to 10.1 MMT, with wheat imports dropping from 12.8 MMT to 12.3 MMT. Maize production is seen as dropping from 7.2 MMT to 7.0 MMT, wh...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes, with the U.S. hitting Iranian bridges, energy sites, and military infrastructure. Iran launched a missile into Kuwait that damaged a desalination plant. Crude oil futures surged on heightened Middle East tensions, providing supp...
Key Takeaways: The EU heatwaves have coincided with key maize crop reproductive timing and featured high nighttime temperatures, a cruel two-sided blow to maize yields. France, much of western Europe, and Hungary have suffered the worst of the heat, with yield potential collapsing. WPI&r...
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.