The FAO reported earlier this year that the Global Vegetable Oil price index is at its second lowest level in eleven years. The vegetable oil index has sunk lower than the agency’s counterpart, the Cereal Price Index. The good market supply in relatively inexpensive palm oil helped pull down the index. These low prices are despite the policy inflated demand for vegetable oil as biofuel. The surge in the production of palm and palm kernel oil, predominantly in Southeast Asia but not exclusively, has improved the diets of millions of poor people that otherwise lack basic calories. However, over half the content of palm oil is the less healthy saturated fat. Soybeans and their derivatives get much of the market attention but there...
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.