The weather is supposed to improve over the northern part of the Midwest, allowing a robust planting opportunity, and speculators opened the day by initially selling corn for that reason as well as concern over the trade spat with Mexico. Wheat prices remained firm, which initially held corn up from a precipitous fall. Ultimately, though, corn was mostly off 0.75-2.75 cents. Soybeans had a higher tone, but large stocks unsurprisingly pushed soyoil lower, and meal followed. The cattle market saw significantly more red than green despite robust demand in the U.S. and lower meal prices. The challenge, as always, is accurately reading the mixed signals. The bulls are focused on more rain late this week for the southern U.S. Plains and NASA&rsq...
What You Need to Know Today: President Trump suspended the planned attacks on Iran and announced that the pieces for a framework for peace were in place in a weekend social media post. Iran, however, later said no efforts were underway to conduct negotiations with the U.S., though Oman indicat...
Key Takeaways: E15 expansion would support corn and ethanol demand by increasing domestic biofuel consumption and reducing reliance on petroleum-based fuels. Year-round E15 has gained bipartisan momentum, but the policy remains in legislative limbo as lawmakers continue to negotiate provisions...
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.