Yesterday's USDA supply and demand estimates should be considered at least somewhat bullish. U.S. ending supply estimates for corn, wheat and soybeans suggest farmers will again be scraping bin bottoms next summer before the 2013 crops are harvested. The world faces similar tightness with feed grain supplies stocks-to-use ratio at perhaps the lowest level ever. The chart below shows the world corn stocks to use ratio going back to the early 1980s.The markets reacted to yesterday's reports with sharply higher prices early, but they could not hold that buying enthusiasm into the close. Markets overnight and this morning were very weak. The fact that these markets have been unable to sustain any rallies for the past month has a lot of bulls...
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.