EU leaders are accusing Moscow of deliberately destroying Ukraine’s food production and infrastructure. They charge that Russia has a long history of using food as a weapon, including against Ukraine in the Early 1930’s. The question is how long will it take to rebuild once the war is over? Ukrainian wheat production has not changed that much since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The real expansion is capacity has been in corn (CAGR 7.29 percent), and secondarily in sunflowerseed (CAGR 6.38 percent). Wheat is easier to produce and is likely to snap back the quickest. The most valuable asset in any venture including agricultural production is the human skillset. The West can provide inputs but the unknown is how...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
In agriculture and food processing, we think a lot about infrastructure: transportation and storage, processing and packaging, distribution and delivery. It is a physical system of roads, railroads, and rivers; concrete and steel storage; processing plants, warehouses, and machinery; and, event...
Key Takeaways: The Panama Canal’s draft restrictions and decreasing rainfall outlook are driving big moves in dry bulk markets this week. Panamax markets are sharply lower as the economics of moving freight across the Canal are deteriorating rapidly, leading to support in Supramax vessels...
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.