Global food security is supposed to be broadly at risk but acute tightness in grain stocks is more limited to wheat. Global rice stocks are about the same as in 2020/21 yet rice prices are 23 percent higher this year. Similarly, world soybean stocks will be about the same as in 2020/21 and will expand by 16.8 percent this year, yet season average soybean prices are forecast one-third higher than two years ago. World corn ending stocks are larger than two years ago, but season average corn prices are predicted to be 49 percent higher. The world’s wheat stocks will drop 4.5 percent from last year and the lowest since 2016/17. Wheat prices deserve to be in the stratosphere this year. These data ignore stocks to use ratios but thos...
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.