China's Alfalfa Imports Continue to Grow China's January-June 2013 alfalfa imports reached 319,500 MT, a nearly 63 percent increase year on year, according to China customs. U.S and Canada are the top two suppliers and account for as much as 94 percent of the total imports.China's domestic alfalfa supply has been declining due to insufficient processing capacity, export demand, declining planting areas in top production provinces, rising grain prices and lack of favorable governmental policies. The demand for alfalfa, however, continues to grow as the Chinese government is seeking to rebuild its dairy industry. China is now the most important buyer of dairy cows worldwide. Additionally, investors from countries such as Germany and New...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.