World Perspectives

Rice as a Stable Crop

Last year, India restricted non-Basmati rice exports believing there would be a weather-related short supply. Production was ample and now the country faces record high inventories that will likely be dumped on the world market. The OECD calculates that Indian farmers are implicitly taxed $120 billion a year due to export restrictions. Dry conditions were expected to impact Indonesia’s rice production, but now the ministry says rice imports may not be needed in 2025. South Korea’s population and rice demand is falling and so Seoul has been incentivizing farmers to grow alternative crops like wheat as an import substitution measure. Rice is not as large a food grain as corn and wheat, but it occupies more emotional importance, especiall...

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livestock

Livestock Industry Margins

Beef packer margins strengthened for the fourth straight week and posted one of their largest weekly gains of the year. Margins rose $42/head to $57 as fed cattle prices slipped another $4/cwt and the cutout held near recent highs. The move pushed packer profits to their firmest levels since ea...

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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.

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