Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA/AFRICA – MEA REGION Jordan has begun shipments of grain to the West Bank as part of its 45,000 MT donation of wheat and grain. Bangladesh grain imports for 2023/24 are seen by the FAO as 6.1 MMT of wheat and 2.1 MMT of maize. Local production of maize is seen steady at 4.7 MMT with wheat also steady at 1.1 MMT. Pakistan’s grain traders reportedly booked a total of 1.3 MMT of wheat for 2023 importation with as much as 600,000 MT already received. Twenty-five more shipments of wheat are expected to arrive before the end of 2023. Pakistan officials report wheat reserves of 6.9 MMT which it says will meet all needs up to May 2024. Egypt’s shortage of U.S. doll...
What You Need to Know Today: Crude oil prices dropped sharply with traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. There were reports that Iran was behind an attack on a cargo ship near the coast of Oman, which would be a violation of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. Pr...
On Wednesday, the White House submitted a national security supplemental spending request for $87.6 billion. The majority of the request includes funding for the conflict in the Middle East, but there are agricultural provisions as well. The supplemental funding package includes more than $11 b...
From WPI Consulting
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.