India is the world’s largest exporter of rice and Refinitiv points out that India’s export rice prices have been consistently lower than that of Thailand and Vietnam for the past two years. India is exporting roughly twice the amount of rice as Thailand and Vietnam combined. India has a competitive edge since its domestic rice reference price is 15 and 20 percent lower than the producer prices in Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. India has also maintained a higher stocks to use ratio than these competing suppliers, thus justifying its lower pricing. Moreover, higher prices due to global food security concerns coupled with a predicted normal monsoon means that India’s farmers will once again produce a large, export...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.