Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS According to the latest information on its new trade agreement with Russia and Kazakhstan, Iran has agreed to purchase 1 MMT of wheat annually for five years. It will mill the stocks and then re-export the resulting flour to the region. Importing wheat for local use is not allowed in Iran. The wheat shipments may start as soon as April 2018, provided all financing is in place. Russian officials have said that the volume could easily exceed 1.5 MMT per year, depending on Iran’s success with flour export marketing. The Central Bank of Tunisia advises that foreign exchange reserves continue to drop and currently represent only 80 days of imports. The reserves are still suffering from...
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...
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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.