U.S. Canola Area Up, Production Down in 2017 Last week’s USDA crop production report noted 2.028 million acres of canola were harvested in 2017, up 19.9 percent over 2016. This is a record and an indication that more than a few farmers in the Great Plains chose to plant canola instead of wheat. These plantings increased substantially in Oklahoma (87 percent) and Kansas (96 percent). Because of the drought in the upper Great Plains, however, production fell to 2.805 billion pounds (1.273 MMT) from 3.086 billion pounds (1.727 MMT) in 2016. This reflects a drop of over 24 percent in the 2017 average yield to 1,383 pounds/ acre (1.55 MT/hectare) from 1,824 pounds/acre (2.04 MT/hectare) las year. U.S. Sunflower Plantings and Production B...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
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.