The U.S.–China trade war has caused a lot of soybeans to stay at home rather than make the trek across the Pacific, but American surplus grain stocks have been growing for years. The volume of soybeans in storage this past 1 September was 108 percent greater than the year earlier. Stores of corn and wheat were also higher, though off-farm storage of wheat declined. Notably, nearly all the increased grain in storage this year has accumulated on the farm rather than in commercial facilities. Overall, grain stores have risen 35 percent over the past five years, with on-farm storage outpacing commercial holdings by 18 percent. Farmer-controlled storage is believed to enable better pricing control by producers but some wonder if income in...
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.