Will farmers will stick to the planted acres reflected in the March planting intentions report or will they make significant changes based on weather or markets? This is one of the questions analysts must ask during the spring planting season. I have expressed that the unabated rally in the soybean market would lead to fewer corn and spring wheat acres and more soybean acres. Some informal producer surveys conducted this week indicate that my ideas of changing acreage are probably wrong. Let me say again these are very informal surveys, but they do cover most of the Northern Plains and western Corn Belt.The question posed to farmers was: How has your planted acreage ideas changed from what you intended to plant? The overwhelming majority...
Russian Grain Markets: 12–16 October 2026 During the week in review, the Russian grain market began recovering after an extended decline driven largely by Black Sea logistics bottlenecks, a good crop and weaker global demand in traditional Russian markets. Russia is beginning to harvest c...
What You Need to Know Today: Corn and soybeans were under heavy selling pressure as weaker (or at least as-expected) export demand runs into an accelerating harvest pace with more grain available in the spot market. Corn and soybean harvest progress remains below average across the U.S., espec...
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.