News Updates Regional Updates MIDDLE EAST/MEDITERRANEAN COMMENTS The Oman Food Investment Holding Company (OFIC) is planning to invest $100 million in a facility that can produce 750,000 MT of soymeal and 175,000 MT of soyoil annually, which should be sufficient to cover 100 percent of Oman’s needs for the former. Poultry production there is expected to quadruple from 30,000 MT per year to 120,000 MT over the next five years, and the soymeal production will help keep feed costs reasonable. Once the project is completed, Oman will need to import at least 1 MMT of soybeans each year to keep the new facility supplied. The “Regional Preparatory Meeting on Water Issues” was held in Beirut, Lebanon last week in conjunction w...
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.
The corn and soy complex closed higher, with the wheat market mixed, as winter wheat closed up but spring wheat and livestock ended lower. Part of the strength for corn and soybeans may have been a weather premium, as crop planting has started out fast but warm weather has been slow to develop...
Real GDP grew at a 2 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2026, slightly below the consensus expectation of 2.3 percent but above the 0.5 percent growth in Q4 2025. The GDP number matches the average annualized pace of growth since the peak back in late 2007, right before the Financial P...
Reflect for a moment on what you eat. There is a lot of advice out there in the ether about what you should eat, but really, what do you currently eat and how much? The good people at the USDA have some data for you, to help you answer that question. USDA says that we eat quite a bit of meat. L...