Higher Prices Needed to Ration Soybean Demand Last week's export sales report and this week's NOPA crush report shows the pace of U.S. soybean use is quickening, not slowing. Soybean export sales last week totaled 1,319,400 MT, a marketing year high. China was the main buyer, with purchases totaling 1,008,800 MT. The sales brought U.S. total soybean export sales thus far in 2012/13 to 28.414 MMT (1.044 billion bushels). That's 77.6 percent of USDA's forecast for exports in all of 2012/13, and we are only one-fourth of the way through the marketing year. This does not count the 91,000 MT of soybeans sold to unknown buyers for shipment in 2012/13 that USDA reported this week. It is still at least three months before large shipments of new...
Key Takeaways: Brazil confirmed a Newcastle disease outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Santa Catarina on 18 October, raising concerns about potential disruptions to poultry exports despite the outbreak being confined to a single facility thus far. Mexico and Malaysia have imposed nationwi...
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...
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.