The consultancy Sovecon this week increased its estimate of the Russian wheat crop to 94.7 MMT. That is 7.6 percent more than USDA's guess at 88 MMT and if realized, it would be nearly 20 MMT larger than Russia’s 2021/22 wheat crop. An astounding level of increase. By contrast, the consultancy Agritel expects the French wheat crop to fall by 5.6 percent this year to 33.44 MMT. FranceAgriMer’s latest estimate calls for a crop of 32.9 MMT due to the adverse impacts of frost, drought and very high temperatures. Agritel also has a higher export estimate at 10.95 MMT. The company’s survey of industry indicates larger wheat exports due to less competition from Ukraine. The question is whether Russia will present increased...
Key Market Insights Macro Markets: Inflation and Iran Reenter the Conversation Just when the grain trade had become comfortable focusing almost exclusively on weather, two major macro stories returned to the spotlight this morning: inflation and Iran. May CPI came in hotter than expected, with...
Why read this? Because Mark Twain correctly noted that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” One of the most successful commodity traders and an eventual analyst at WPI was Bob Kohlmeyer. He was a history major from Princeton. After 47 years of profession...
Key Takeaways: China's rise to become the world's largest soybean importer reshaped global trade flows, but recent trade tensions have reduced its share of U.S. soybean exports. U.S. soybean exports have become increasingly diversified as exporters expanded sales to multiple emerging markets t...
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.