News Updates GM FOOD AND TURKEY With the Turkish government's recent approval of 13 GM corn types and three GM soybean types, there has been huge anti-GMO activity in the country. A senior trade executive in the country exemplified the lack of understanding regarding GMO, stating that "if GMOs [in the EU] constitute less than 1 percent of a food product, they are not considered to be damaging to people's health." That is certainly an interesting, if ill-informed, bit of information. The head of a major corporation in Turkey says the company's position on GMO is that it "should be banned, not limited."According to headlines in the Turkish news, the food industry is "risking future generations for the sake of profits." That looks to be abou...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.