Soybeans: Big crops in South America The last soybean campaign in South America was very disappointing. In November 2011, everyone was predicting production to be about 72 MMT in Brazil, 53 MMT in Argentina, 7.5 MMT in Paraguay and 2.2 MMT in Uruguay. However, by December 2011 crops began to shrink because of the drought that affected those countries. Brazil's soybean crop was lowered to 66 MMT, as per Conab, down about 10 percent from original estimates. Paraguay's crop was reduced to 4 MMT, about a 47 percent reduction. Argentina's fell to 40 MMT, a 25 percent reduction. The only country that met and even surpassed its estimated production level was Uruguay, finishing with 2.4 MMT of soybeans. Uruguay was lucky enough to catch most of...
Key Takeaways: Brazil confirmed a Newcastle disease outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Santa Catarina on 18 October, raising concerns about potential disruptions to poultry exports despite the outbreak being confined to a single facility thus far. Mexico and Malaysia have imposed nationwi...
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...
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.