Higher Cotton Production Could Bring Prices Down The land planted to cotton in India has increased 18.62 percent to 12.1 million hectares in 2017/18 versus 10.2 million hectares in 2016/17. Farmers shifted to cotton as they were unable to make a profit last year with other crops, mainly pulses and oilseeds. The Ministry of Agriculture, government of India (GOI) data of 6 October indicates the country is expected to produce 33.09 million bales (170 kg each) this year, up 2.53 percent against 32.273 million bales in 2016/17. However, GOI’s first estimate of the 2017/18 cotton production is much lower than that of the Cotton Association of India (CAI), which is projecting a total 37.5 million bales due to the expanded planted area. The...
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...
A federal appeals court paused a USITC ruling against President Trump’s use of Section 122 to impose 10-percent global tariffs. A bipartisan group of 80 House members asked USTR to investigate specialty crop imports from Mexico for unfair trade practices. India notified the WT...
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.