Congress is back in session after the 4th of July Independence Day holiday break. But there are only 12 days on the legislative calendar for the month; there will be a break next week for the Republican nominating convention, and then Congress adjourns for the August recess on 2 August. Legislators will be back for September but adjourn again in early October before the November elections. This doesn’t bode well for completing any legislation, including the farm bill. Note that on 30 September, the current farm bill extension expires, as does the current government funding. Currently no appropriations for FY 2025 (which starts on 1 October) have been approved by Congress. The House has passed 4 of 12 appropriations bills,...
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has reached a critical point after the Supreme Court ruled on 25 June that Bayer is shielded from state-level lawsuits because federal regulation does not require the company to warn of alleged cancer risks from such products. Thousands of "failure...
Developer's Note: Last year, users pointed out differences between the 5-year averages reported in this app and what USDA estimates in its weekly report. The difference exists because WPI calculates average based on the last 5 years of observations for the current week. In cases where obs...
What You Need to Know Today: It was just one of those days where seemingly everything was in the red as part of a broader risk-off economic sentiment amid de-escalation headlines in the Middle East. Other key fundamentals were also bearish, including the resumption of Mexican cattle imports an...
From WPI Consulting
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.