Regional Updates MEDITERRANEAN/MIDDLE EAST COMMENTS Saudi Arabia’s purchases of farmlands in Australia is causing considerable national concern. According to Australian information, about 13 percent of all farmland is foreign owned. One problem that has come to light is that there seems to be no Australian buyers for large available farmlands, but critics do say that international buyers are willing to pay much higher prices than possible Australian buyers. There was a sale to a Saudi buyer earlier in 2019 for a 200,000 hectares parcel of farmland, mainly grain land, at a reported price of about A$ 60 million. There were no Australian buyers/investors interested in the total parcel. Supporters of foreign sales say that the critics n...
What You Need to Know Today: Funds remain in control of the market, which means broadly bearish trade for the ag sector. Monday’s massive corn export sale to Mexico helped trigger some short covering and a bit of other end-user buying in corn, which could help stabilize the market. Wheat...
Crop Conditions-Argentina Corn Corn planting in Argentina has reached 47.3 percent of the projected 8.4 Mha, advancing 7.5 percentage points over the week and running 12.3 points ahead of last season, partly due to a larger early-planted area. Fieldwork gained momentum across western and southe...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.