General Comments The world survived the end of the Mayan calendar myth. Now we must see if we survive the fiscal cliff. The failure of the House Republicans to vote on Plan B last night brought early heavy selling to financial markets. That selling spilled into crude oil as well. There was broad buying across the grain and oilseed markets, but in quite light volume as we approached the holiday weekend.Other news was limited today. There were no export sales announced, but there was a correction of a reporting error from earlier in the week. USDA had reported the sale of 110,000 MT of soybeans on 18 December 18 that wasn't an export sale.Today was the last trading day for options on January futures contracts.Markets will open at 5 p.m. CT...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.