Farm Bill Movements If a deal can be reached on the fiscal cliff, it looks likely that a new farm bill could be part of the plan following that signal from the White House. More importantly, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) indicated he believes he can garner enough Republican votes to pass a farm bill in the House before the end of the lame duck session. He wants a conference committee to be prepared to rapidly reach agreement on such a measure. Rice Decline Japan is about to ship very expensive Kobe beef to the U.S., but the government has announced an even smaller rice production quota for 2013. Consumption in Japan continues its 50-year slide, falling from around 12 MMT per year in 1960 to just under 8 MMT this coming...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.