Planting on New Policy Transfer payments, technocrat speak for taxpayer money given to beneficiaries, amount to around 5 percent of farm income and can only be considered to have marginal impact on planting decisions, but they do have an impact. EU Grains Planting: A Closer Look Grains and oilseeds plantings in the EU tend to be relatively stable. However, crop shifts at member state level can be significant nonetheless, and the impact of such shifts may be greater on the cost side of farming. Increased North American Oilseed Plantings in 2014 USDA is forecasting U.S. soybean plantings to increase by almost 4 percent and the Canadian government is forecasting an 80 percent increase in that country's canola plantings in 2014. Rising Co...
What You Need to Know Today: Corn and soybeans were under heavy selling pressure as weaker (or at least as-expected) export demand runs into an accelerating harvest pace with more grain available in the spot market. Corn and soybean harvest progress remains below average across the U.S., espec...
Key Takeaways: Brazil confirmed a Newcastle disease outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Santa Catarina on 18 October, raising concerns about potential disruptions to poultry exports despite the outbreak being confined to a single facility thus far. Mexico and Malaysia have imposed nationwi...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
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.