Is Higher MSP One Way to Offset Exports? The chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has recommended increasing the minimum support price (MSP) of all major grains and pulses as well as cotton. The CACP, which works under the Ministry of Agriculture and advises the government of India (GOI) on pricing policy for all major ag commodities, believes that implementing a higher MSP concurrently with the export ban would offset any reduction in prices that might occur as a result of the ban and ensure that farmers in India stay in business.While inflation may be down, food inflation stood at 9.94 percent for the month of March against 6.07 percent in February, according to GOI data. The markets will respond with high...
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.
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...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
Russian Grain Markets: 12–16 October 2026 During the week in review, the Russian grain market began recovering after an extended decline driven largely by Black Sea logistics bottlenecks, a good crop and weaker global demand in traditional Russian markets. Russia is beginning to harvest c...