MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGION Iraq is planning on building a rail link with Turkey. The proposed rail line would begin at FAW port in the south of Iraq, on the Persian Gulf, then run directly north to the eastern Turkish border. The line is expected to cost $17 billion and is expected to make trade easier with Turkey, Iraq, and Europe. Iraq’s Kurdish Region wheat farmers are complaining that, although they are seeing a bumper wheat crop this year, they have no buyers. In most other areas of Iraq, the government is the main wheat buyer while in the Kurdish area they have to sell to low-priced traders at about 40 percent below the government’s purchase price. The government says that it h...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report for 1 July will be released tomorrow. Analysts’ pre-report consensus estimates are for the total inventory on feed to be 102.2 percent of last year. Those estimates imply an on-feed inventory of 11.327 million head. If accurate, that would be the...
Key Takeaways: The situation in the Arab Gulf is little changed this week, which is to say it is a day-by-day – and sometimes hour-by-hour – judgment call as to what is or will happen. There are some vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, but transits are a fraction of what they...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.