"Hope springs eternal," as the old saying goes, and in terms of U.S. corn and soybean crops for 2013/14, last week's projections from the USDA Outlook Conference were loaded with hope. The principal element of hope seemed to be that the crops produced in 2013/14 would eliminate any and all concerns about the adequacy of supplies of grains or soybeans. USDA projected 2013/14 U.S. corn production to be record large at 14.5 billion bushels based on a yield of 163.6 bushels per acre. Soybean production is projected at 3.4 billion bushels based on a record yield of 44.5 bushels per acre. Based on these projections, U.S. ending corn stocks of 2.18 billion bushels for 2013/14 will be well more than three times larger than USDA's latest estimate...
Yesterday, Alberta held a referendum on whether to begin the process toward independence from Canada. With more than one million votes counted as of early Tuesday morning, around 77 percent supported remaining in Canada, and 23 percent voted to start the process of separation, according to unof...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Pakistan’s smaller wheat farmers have been holding protests to complain about the lack of a support price for wheat and the potential expansion of GMO crop production. They also want the reinstatement of PASSCO, the governme...
What You Need to Know Today: Harvest pressure in the U.S. sent corn and soybeans lower as supplies increased and there were signs USDA’s upward revisions to yields in the October WASDE could be close to right. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated over the weekend, with Ukrai...
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.