Macroeconomics Food Prices Fall Year-on-Year in January by Nearly 4 Percent In another sign that China’s domestic economy is seeing further contraction to start 2022, the cost of food fell in January by 3.8 percent. In the preceding 12 months, food prices have fallen in 10 of them. January’s decrease is the largest year-on-year decline since this past September. Pork prices, even with the Lunar New Year holiday coming early, were down 41.6 percent from a year ago. The cost of fresh vegetables edged down by 4.1 percent on an annualized basis. Meanwhile, the costs of cooking oil and eggs, while up from a year ago, rose at a much slower pace than in December with upticks of 4.1 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. The one excep...
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.