Volatility has been no stranger to the CBOT these past three weeks, and the one consistency during this time has been the dramatic coupling of ag markets’ fortunes to the foibles of crude oil. That was again true on Monday, but this time crude oil offered a bearish – rather than sup...
WTO Realism The WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference begins later this week, and while some have high hopes, pragmatists understand the elongated nature of consensus-based multinational policy development. EU trade minister Maroš Šefčovič expresses the hopes of his constituents...
CORN Argentina’s corn harvest continues to move forward and has now reached 13 percent of planted area, with fieldwork still concentrated in the North Core. Progress there remains steady, and yields are averaging 9.82 MT/ha. Harvest is also beginning to pick up in the South Core, where ea...
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.