Like Europe, U.S. use of inputs like fertilizer slowed as genetics and technology increased in their role in production. The difference is that U.S. agricultural productivity will see substantially differernt gains in the years ahead. Partial Productivity HFFA Research completed a study for the European Plant Technology Platform that found improved plant breeding techniques over the past 15 years has boosted productivity by 16 percent or just over 1 percent per year. Importantly, seed genetics accounts for 74 percent of all productivity gains in the EU and drives a third of farmer income. Missing from the analysis is how much stronger the gains would have been had Brussels allowed the use of biotechnology in production for more than a few...
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...
Key Takeaways: India is excluding sugarcane juice, sugar syrup, and B-heavy molasses from its 2026/27 fuel ethanol procurement program to protect domestic sugar supplies, potentially shifting additional demand toward corn and rice. India’s corn consumption for ethanol has surged from jus...
Developer's Note 24 August 2026: WPI recently completed an exercise that updated the codebase for this app and solved some of the discrepancies between our five-year average calculation and USDA's. There are a few lingering cases where early (late) starts (finishes) to the crop cycle resu...
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.