Beef packer margins eased slightly to $119/head, declining $7/head week over week as a modest softening in the cutout combined with a small increase in live cattle prices compressed margins. Despite the weekly pullback, margins remain sharply improved on a monthly basis (+$233/head), supported...
The CBOT took a bit of a breather on Monday as traders waited for the upcoming Prospective Plantings and Grain Stocks reports, which the USDA will issue Tuesday at midday. Traders were reluctant to expand risk too much ahead of these two reports, which often change market direction and tone for...
Forlorn or Failure The spin from the WTO on the organization’s recent MC14 meetings was that a lot of decisions were adopted, progress was made, and while the event “ran out of time,” new commitments on outstanding issues can still be made in Geneva. Director-General Ngozi Oko...
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.