The Case for an Average U.S. Soybean Yield Below USDA’s Forecast USDA’s most recent forecast for the average U.S. soybean yield in 2019 is 47.9 bushels per acre (3.22 MT/hectare). That is below the average of the last 3 years. However, is it still too high? A look at the most recent soybean condition report suggests it likely is. Monday’s crop condition report indicated that 54 percent of the soybeans in the 118 states surveyed by USDA were rated as either good or excellent. That compares with the average a year ago of 68 percent. However, in the key state of Illinois only 43 percent were rated as good or excellent versus 80 percent a year ago. In Indiana and Ohio, the percentage of good or excellent was 31 and 33 percen...
What You Need to Know Today: Oil prices extended their rally Tuesday as disruptions to global supplies intensified. Saudi Arabia halted crude loadings at its Yanbu Red Sea port following the shutdown of the East-West Pipeline, while protests by oil-sector security workers forced the suspension...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts while leaving poultry almost unchanged. Beef is now projected at 24.877 billion pounds, 90 million pounds below August on slower Q3 fed cattle slaughter and lighter dressed weights, along with an anticipated counterseasonal cutback in...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Egypt’s grain imports have fallen off in recent weeks due to several reasons, according to local experts — large imports of maize earlier in the year built up good stocks, while the availability of local maize has sinc...
From WPI Consulting
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.