Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA There is a great deal of concern in North Africa about the effect that the second wave of COVID-19 will have on the still limited tourist business. Tourist travel had started to recover when lockdowns were lifted and tourist places in the MENA region, and Turkey, were starting to smile. But the smiling has stopped. Clearly related to the tourism industry is the poultry industry across the region as tourist hotels, etc were major consumers of chicken. Most North African countries are seeing poultry production down by as much as 50 percent which impacts both corn and soymeal usage. In some countries, like Egypt, corn imports had moved higher in recent weeks as importers/end users...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.