Global sugar prices are up 55 percent over a year ago due to a weather shortened Brazilian cane crop. The price is still 23 percent below the peak it hit in 2011/12, but high enough to cause discomfort to users. By contrast, the U.S. sugar market is stable due to the government floor price. The U.S. sugar price averages 64 percent higher than world prices but in years like this one, the two come close with just a 32 percent premium in the American market. Automotive fuel distributor in Brazil have asked the government to reduce the ethanol blend requirement from 27 percent to 18 percent due to both the higher price for sugar and corn as feedstocks. It has also heightened the interest by U.S. ethanol producers to have the Brazilian im...
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.