Background Here in WPI's hometown of Washington, D.C., the end of March is a busy time. There are cherry blossoms, warm sunshine and of course college basketball's March Madness. However, for the past few weeks WPI's analysts like grain wonks elsewhere have been intensely focused on what we believe is the biggest event of the month: USDA's 30 March Prospective Plantings report (PPR).As many of you know, the PPR is a survey of farmers across the U.S. Generally, the survey asks farmers what they intend to do this planting season, i.e. what crop(s) they plan on planting, total acreage, etc. Many analytical firms publicize their best "guesses" ahead of USDA's report, so rather than duplicate that exercise we decided to ask our analysts for a m...
What You Need to Know Today: Declining crop conditions ratings and shaky results from the Pro Farmer crop tour sent grains sharply higher on Tuesday. The Pro Farmer tour in Ohio pegged the state yield at 180.18 BPA, about 5.5 BPA below the tour’s 2025 estimate. Similarly, the Pro Farmer...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt is the largest importer of Brazilian maize in the first six months of 2026. Egypt imported about 28.4 percent of maize exports, or about 1.7 million MT. Iran was the third-largest importer at 14.5 percent, or 900,000 MT, fol...
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
From WPI Consulting
Infrastructure investment due diligence
On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.