Pea-shooting at Biotech The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) report that biotech crop acres expanded 8 percent in 2011 prompted the technologies' opponents to launch attacks ranging from the charge of double counting to a repetition of the usual blather. Greenpeace said only a small amount of Europe's land is planted to GM and that "only Spain marginally [emphasis added] increased its acreage grown [to GM] in 2011." ISAAA reports that the planting of MON810 maize in Europe rose by over 25 percent last year.The last time we heard from Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists he was issuing the earth-shattering complaint that drought-resistant corn would only be helpful when a...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Key Market Insights Geopolitical Limbo: Geopolitical risk remained a key driver across global commodity markets today. President Trump stated that the Iran memorandum of understanding is not yet final and warned that military action could resume if negotiations fail. Both sides continue w...
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.