China Buys Australian Rapeseed I wrote last week that China and Australia reached agreement to liberalize Chinese imports of Australian rapeseed. China previously had prohibited imports of rapeseed from Australia based on concerns about diseases being spread to China's rapeseed farms.As a result of the agreement, Chinese crushers apparently purchased about 300,000 MT of Australian rapeseed over the last few days. The purchases were made at a price of about $680/MT versus the offer price from Canada of about $716/MT. It is likely additional purchases will be made in the near future.Australia apparently has a record volume of rapeseed to market this year. Oil World this week raised its forecast for Australia's 2013 rapeseed crop by 500,000...
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...
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.