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...
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...
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.