Regional News Early-morning frosts were reported across Poland down to France as crops are reaching growth stages that are sensitive to cold. It’s too early to say whether the cold snap will dent yields, but the 2024 crop continues to face weather challenges. Tunisia purchased 25 KMT of hard wheat at $376.49/MT C&F last week. France forecasts that its winter cereal crop planted area will fall 6.8 percent from 2023 to the 2024 crop year and cover 6.81 Mha. Of that, soft winter wheat was seeded on 4.34 Mha (down 7.7 percent), hard winter wheat sowings were across 0.22 Mha (down 6.4 percent) and winter barley was seeded on 1.28 Mha (down 6.1 percent). Spring barley plantings will be 0.5 Mha (up 10.7 percent...
What You Need to Know Today: Crude oil prices dropped sharply with traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. There were reports that Iran was behind an attack on a cargo ship near the coast of Oman, which would be a violation of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. Pr...
On Wednesday, the White House submitted a national security supplemental spending request for $87.6 billion. The majority of the request includes funding for the conflict in the Middle East, but there are agricultural provisions as well. The supplemental funding package includes more than $11 b...
Can we really expect a bushel of corn to carry an environmental passport throughout the entire food system? One that reliably documents its carbon footprint, biodiversity impacts, water use, soil carbon, and other environmental attributes all the way from the farm field to the consumer? This is...
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.