Russian Grain Markets: 24-28 October 2022 Planting Update Winter crop planting is still behind schedule and may be the lowest in the past five years. As of 31 October, winter crops were planted over 16.3 Mha which is 85 percent of the forecast and about 2 Mha behind past year. It is already clear that Russia will not be able to plant as many hectares as the ministry expected which was 19 Mha. Initially the ministry hoped that winter crops would increase by 600,000 ha. The rainy season lasted longer than usual and did not allow farmers to plant in the south and center of the country, the main wheat producing areas. About two-thirds of the farms in the south decided to stop planting in October and plant nothing in November. Planting in occ...
Key Market Insights Macros: Inflation isn’t cooling — it’s moving higher again. March PCE inflation (Personal Consumption Expenditures index — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation) rose 0.7 percent month-over-month, pushing the annual rate to 3.5 percent, the h...
An amendment to the U.S. House farm bill, aiming to remove the Save Our Bacon Act language in Section 12006 that would have stripped language to prohibit California’s Proposition 12, Massachusetts’ Question 3, and up to 500 state agricultural laws across the country, was blocked by...
What Matters Today... Fed holds rates steady as inflation uncertainty tied to the Iran conflict pressures equities and supports broader commodity risk premia Biofuel demand accelerating globally, with U.S. imports of used cooking oil and strong soyoil demand reinforcing upside across the soy c...
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.