Anti-Meat Campaign The number of media articles against consuming meat and poultry is beginning to spike. They cover the range of arguments served up by vegetarian campaigners – bad for the environment, bad for human health, unethical, etc. There are of course counter-arguments but there is no fair and balanced in the American media today. It is unclear how much impact this campaign will have on attitudes and actual meat consumption. While Venezuela, Russia, and China skew media messaging to the government’s position, the media itself performs the censorship in the U.S., with contrarian messengers kicked off Facebook and Twitter. There is unlikely to be an attack on meat from the White House. The progressive left has bee...
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...