Milling Wheat The Black Sea market was quiet this week as demand shifted to South America. The debate over the winterkill rate in Ukraine is attracting different opinions. The market seems to agree that more than 30 percent of the crop has been damaged by the drought and winterkill; however, some believe that the damage is limited to only 10-15 percent. There is also a growing doubt over the size of the 2011 Ukrainian crop, which was officially reported to be 21 MMT. Farmers have stopped selling wheat and exports will probably be very limited until the end of the campaign. If the crop is really 21 MMT, the implied stocks at the end of June 2012 would be in excess of 5 MMT. Such a scenario does not make much sense. Wheat prices were very...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.