Some producers are just starting to look at the price calculations and are stunned by the revenue coverage for 2015 crops versus the previous several years.Today is the last day of the initial (and minimum) price calculation period for the crop revenue insurance program covering spring planted crops. We wrote an analysis of how the 2015 program prices might compare to the previous four years on 2 February. The 2015 column in the table below shows the year's calculations. Included are all but today's futures closes, which will not make much of a difference.The price changes between the first table we showed at the beginning of this month (2 February analysis) and today's have been small and are a reflection of just how little difference ther...
The Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus) is a rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. It occurs only in the U.S. state of Washington, at the middle elevations of the Olympic Peninsula. The closest relatives of this species are the hoary marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot. In 2009, it was decl...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
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.