General Comments Overnight trade was quiet in the absence of new inputs. Wheat was weaker with some traders trying to run ahead of index funds that are likely to shed some of their long wheat position during year-end rebalancing. The day session also opened quietly amid a lack of fresh news. USDA's weekly Export Sales report is delayed until tomorrow (Friday) due to the holiday. With nothing much to trade on, markets retained a holiday atmosphere. Volume for corn and wheat was relatively light, and price movements were muted within narrow ranges.The soy complex saw somewhat better volume and wider price ranges thanks in part to some bargain hunters who pushed prices up 7-8 cents early in the day session before renewed technical selling p...
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.