The American Chamber of Commerce in China complained this week about the government’s slow approval process regarding new biotech crops, which most notably impacts the soybean sector. There is also a potential development that could worsen the situation. Low Pulse and Soybean Prices Drive India’s Farmers to Alternative Crops The government of India conducted a campaign last year to convince farmers there to plant more pulses and oilseeds to alleviate domestic shortages that caused high prices. Farmers responded by sharply boosting pulses production 35 percent to 22 MMT and oilseed production by a third to 34 MMT, which had been the predictable results. In the past six months, the price of pulses has dropped about 40 percent and that of so...
What You Need to Know Today: Pro Farmer’s crop tour pegged the 2026 U.S. corn crop at 173.2 BPA and anticipated a 15.344 Bbu crop – both figures well below expectations. Pro Farmer forecast 2026 U.S. soybean yields at 53.3 BPA, above most private estimates and USDA’s August W...
Key Takeaways: Gene editing makes targeted changes to a plant’s existing DNA, while genetic modification can introduce genetic material from another organism to create traits not naturally present in the crop. Gene editing is unlikely to replace genetic modification entirely, as the two...
USDA’s August cattle on feed report was released Friday, with the total number of cattle in feedlots with a capacity of 1,000 head or more amounting to 11.1 million head, 102 percent of last year and the same as last month. Placements dropped in July to their lowest total for the month s...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.