The trading before a major WSDE report always entails differing vibes. It is more volatile when there is wide variance in expectations, and more subdued when the mood is more sublime. This might count as the latter except where it wasn’t. The volume trading corn, wheat and soy...
The CBOT was solidly in the red on Wednesday while cattle futures regained some of their former strength. Markets had to process multiple headlines at the national/international political level, which led to some mild risk-off trade. Mostly, however, for grains, the looming WASDE dominated the...
Wheat from the Chaff An agricultural meeting in Arkansas last week drew 400 to 500 farmers, a much larger group than expected at harvest time. They vented their angst over low commodity prices, high input costs, and consequently low profitability. One estimate from bankers is that farm bankrupt...
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.