Double-Edged Assistance The trade mitigation package being floated by the Trump administration is again generous to soybeans but stingy toward corn. In the earlier package, corn received less than 1 percent of the payment given to soybeans. The numbers being thrown around for round two quadruples the amount to corn but still leaves it at just 2 percent of the soybean assistance. However, a positive spin from exporters of corn is that at least that commodity is unlikely to face countervailing duties in foreign markets since the assistance is less than 5 percent of the value of the corn. Walk and Chew Gum Frustrated by the unrelenting efforts of congressional Democrats to investigate him, President Trump announced that he will not...
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...
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.