The Need for Biotech in India Many experts, including those in the private and public sectors, believe that Indian farmers and consumers would be better off if the government (GOI) allowed for the use of GM technology in Indian food crops. India has less than 4 percent of the world's arable land, but it has to feed 18 percent of the global population. Thus, it can be argued that GM crops are needed to help the country sustain itself and to ensure food security. GM cotton currently is only crop allowed to be sown using the technology; other GM crops, including many vegetables, peanuts, pulses and corn are still in the pipeline.The director general of the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Hyderabad r...
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...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
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 €...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.