LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | September 16, 2022

No49 - Corn

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Corn. Key points: - In her book  Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain , Dr L. Feldman-Barrett recalls the story of a man drafted against his will and who served in the Rhodesian army during the Rhodesian Bush War in the 1970s. One morning, “with a pounding heart, he saw a long line of guerrilla fighters dressed in camouflage and carrying machine guns. Instinctively, he raised his rifle, flipped off the safety catch, squinte.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | September 05, 2022

No48 Soybeans

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Soybeans. Key points: - As curious observers of complex systems (cf. AWR No 40), one question resonates stronger with us this summer: why is it that despite having unprecedented access to information, most political leaders and economic agents have a hard time anticipating major events or crises? One possible explanation was given several years ago by N.N. Taleb: in a complex system, “information comes accompanied with noise. B.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | August 15, 2022

No47 - Corn

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Corn. Key points: - There are times when it is difficult to write anything meaningful as our faith in humanity get badly shaken. This has certainly been the case over the past few days – more precisely since the early morning of 31 July 2022, when Mr Oleksiy Vadaturskyy and his wife Raisa Vadaturska were both killed in their home in Mykolaiv by a Russian missile strike. While an investigation is currently under way, odds sugges.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | July 27, 2022

No46 Global Grain

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Wheat. Key points: - Few months ago, we wrote that in a world intrinsically uncertain, it is important to improve the manner about how we learn about it. In reality, “we learn about the world through approximation, getting closer and closer to the truth as we gather more evidence” according to T. Bayes. While inductive reasoning based on probability can help us to assess risk associated to a particular situation, it remains tha.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | July 14, 2022

No45 - Wheat

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Wheat. Key points: - The Collatz conjecture – named after mathematician Lothar Collatz in the 1930s and also known as the 3n + 1 conjecture – remains one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. Despite its apparent simplicity in formulation, it continues to fascinate many mathematicians around the planet – including Terence Tao, Fields Medal winner in 2006. To illustrate the conjecture, pick a positive number. If t.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | July 05, 2022

No44 - Macro-Corn

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Macro/Corn. Key points: - Scientific research tends to suggest that the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic on human psyche has led to more distortions in group thinking and mass behaviour following an increase in anxiety, trauma and stressor-related disorders. Preliminary research* from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital showed that even in the case of uninfected individuals, social restrictions during the.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | June 24, 2022

No43 - Wheat

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Wheat / Long-Term Perspective. Key points: - In The Affect Heuristic (2002), P. Slovic et al. explain that people ascertain what they think by referring to their feelings. “Affect means the specific quality of ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ experienced as a feeling state and demarcating a positive or negative quality of a stimulus. Affective responses occur rapidly and automatically – note how quickly you sense the feelings associated.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | June 09, 2022

No42 Wheat - Russia

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Wheat / Russia. Key points: - During a recent visit of the world stamp exhibition in Lugano, several thoughts emerged after the viewing of an incredible work of historical research by G. Armando about the Crimean War (1853-1856).  As written by the philatelist, “the use of postal history artifacts such as envelopes and letters of the era provide unique insights to many of the deeper themes”. While reading those letters from a l.....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | May 31, 2022

No41 - Soybeans

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Soybeans. Key points: - In its May WASDE report, the USDA pegged the 2021-22 soybean crop in Brazil at 125 million MT compared with Conab at 123.8 million MT. The Brazilian agency increased its crop estimate by 1.4 million MT from the prior month on the back of improved yields in Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, respectively at 3.66 and 1.53 MT per hectare. As a reminder: the country’s soybean production is down from a prior .....

LCMC AGS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | May 23, 2022

No 40 - Wheat - 23rd May 2022

Dear , Please find below the link to our latest report, this week on Wheat. Key points: - There are many sorts of complex systems in the world involving technological innovation and/or people – such as economic and political systems. Despite being thought as stable and self-correcting when needed, these systems can become volatile and random at times – forcing their complete revamp in order to avoid an otherwise certain collapse. The story of the opening day of the Millennium footbridge’s over t.....