The CBOT was sharply lower to start the week as markets had a negative reaction to surprising policy developments from South America. Argentina’s government announced a zero-export tax policy on grains through 31 October in an attempt to boost domestic reserves of U.S. dollars (for detail...
Convenience over Causation A months’ long commitment to delivering in September led to today’s announcement by chemo-phobe RFK, Jr. that, “I think we found an answer to autism” As previously noted, the Trump Administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report...
Update for 28 April 2025: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where o...
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.