With drought afflicting crops elsewhere, many are assessing crop conditions in the Black Sea Region, and particularly in Russia. Rumor has it that, like two years ago, Moscow will impose an export embargo as a result of the drought-stunted grain supply. Production is down and exports will be as well, but this is not 2010.Much of the credit needs to go to the Western seed technology suppliers whose genetics have changed the face of Russian production. The corn in Russia's southern oblasts looks like corn in Iowa. Only a decade ago there were no hybrids available in Russia to grow 10 MT/hectare corn this far north. Private investment is increasing, and while Russian land is a commodity where land banks lease area, Ukrainian land is not a comm...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
Key Takeaways: The tariff burden rose sharply in 2025 and 2026: the effective rate on imports in HTS Chapters 1–24 increased from 1.53 percent in 2024 to 6.11 percent in 2025, before averaging 5.68 percent in January–August 2026. Headline rates tell only part of the story: exemptio...
From WPI Consulting
Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming
WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.