How Much Sugar and Ethanol Will India Produce in Sugar Year 2018/19? It was widely speculated about four months ago that India would produce a huge volume of sugar at 35.5 MMT, adding to its problems of plenty. Following new reports of water scarcity and drought conditions in Maharashtra (as well as untimely rains Uttar Pradesh), grub infestations are now also being reported in areas there (the districts of Ahmednagar, Solapur and Marathwada and to a lesser extent in Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Pune). Because of these problems, sugarcane production in that state alone could be down 15 percent. Meanwhile, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) has reduced its forecast of India’s overall 2018/19 sugar production by 11.36 percent to...
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...
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.