Russian Grain and Oilseed Markets: 24-28 December 2012 Due to the holidays (31 December – 7 January), information on the Russian grain and oilseed markets is unavailable. Russian Grain Interventions to Continue on 15 January The Russian Ministry of Agriculture plans to continue its public commodity grain interventions in 2013 with weekly sales of no more than 130,000 MT. The first auctions in the new year are to take place on 15-16 January. Kazakhstan's Grain Seed Deficit The Union of Farmers of Kazakhstan reported that the grain seed deficit for the 2013 planting season is 67,000 MT. The Union is hoping to eliminate this shortage by using 21,000 MT of state fund seeds and by redistributing seeds between oblasts. Tajikistan Imports...
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...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
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.