Macroeconomics Food Inflation Reverses Course, Falls in December With pork prices continuing to remain well below their averages from a year ago, food costs on aggregate fell by 1.2 percent in December. That reverses course from November when food inflation climbed by 1.6 percent, the first uptick since May. The cost of pork dropped by 36.7 percent year-on-year last month, as the November rally in live hog prices ended. Meanwhile, other categories saw their average prices rise from a year ago, albeit at a slower pace than in November. These included fresh vegetables, cooking oil, and eggs, which jumped by 10.6 percent, 6.4 percent, and 12.7 percent from December 2020. In contrast, fresh fruit prices, which rose by 4.8 percent from a year...
Russian Grain Markets: 29 June-3 July 2026 The new marketing season has officially begun in Russia, although bearish sentiment has been concentrated in the southern regions closest to the Black Sea ports, where export demand has been weakest. Delays in grain deliveries to inland elevators have...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
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.