USDA will publish in tomorrow's Federal Register two proposed actions to reduce the chance of sugar forfeitures. As USDA has noted, the May 2013 USDA WASDE report has sugar stocks-to-use at 18.5 percent. The June WASDE shows ending stocks-to-use at 19 percent and the 2013/14 ending stocks-to-use ratio at 22.4 percent. According to USDA, "In the past, an ending stocks-to-use ratio at or above 18 percent has been strongly correlated with low U.S. sugar prices, and with forfeiture of sugar loan collateral to CCC."Action 1: USDA will purchase sugar from domestic refiners (cane and beet) and then conduct exchanges for credits under the Refined Export Sugar Program. The Refined Export Sugar Program allows licensed refiners to import low duty or...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
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.