Pandemic Growing Uncertainty Over COVID-19’s Origin Deepens Rift Despite the hot start for U.S. agricultural exports to China in 2021, Beijing’s lack of transparency in investigating the origins of COVID-19 continues to draw scrutiny. More news reports concerning researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) becoming ill and seeking hospital care in November 2019 have resulted in skeptical health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and other researchers in Europe to question the thoroughness of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) joint report with colleagues in China about the pandemic’s origins. Previously, the notion that the disease had “escaped” WIV due to poor biohazard security practices an...
What You Need to Know Today: The corn and soybean markets closed slightly higher in low-volume trade. The wheat market was mixed, with HRW continuing its downward trek on improved moisture. As expected, the bearish cattle on feed report drove down cattle prices and pulled hogs down with it. Mi...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report was released today. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounted to 11.6 million head, 102 percent of last year. Source: USDA, WPI Placements were up, but part of that is attributable to persistent drought c...
Let’s return briefly to the fake meat hype cycle, now sitting somewhere in a dusty corner of your mind, not entirely forgotten. What happened to all those products, known as plant-based alternative proteins? They were supposed to be as good as real meat—cheaper, more environmentally...
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.