The Brazilian Foreign Trade Council (Camex) may place a TRQ on ethanol imports in the next two weeks that will impact U.S. ethanol producers.It is nothing like the clashes within the Trump administration, but two cabinet members in Brazil have played out their very different views on ethanol imports in public. In May, Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi urged Brazil’s Foreign Trade Council (Camex) to impose a new tariff on them. Then in June, Minister of Energy and Mines Fernando Coelho Filho responded that tariffs are not a wise long-term strategy for the sector. Indeed, it was Brazil that eliminated its 20 percent tariff on ethanol imports in 2010 and urged the U.S. to do likewise (as it did on 1 January 2012) as a way to build overall glob...
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.
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...