Macroeconomic Food Prices in July See Biggest Drop Since April 2017 With live hog and pork prices falling to breakeven levels, the overall food inflation rate for the month of July fell by 3.7 percent year-on-year. This marked the second straight month of food prices declining in the aggregate on yearly basis. It also parallels a slowing economy in China, as the second quarter GDP grew at an annualized rate of 7.9 percent, below the consensus estimate of 8.1 percent and down from the initial pandemic recovery of 18.3 percent for the first quarter. Pork prices in July dropped by 4.5 percent from the previous year, while fresh vegetables were down 4 percent. Meanwhile, other staple foodstuffs, which are up from a year ago, continue to see...
What You Need to Know Today: Markets got a surprise with a corn yield of 181.2 bushels/acre in the October WASDE, above the average estimate of 177.6 bushels/acre and up from USDA’s September estimate of 178.5 bushels/acre. Although stronger demand is expected to absorb some of the addit...
The USDA has lowered its 2026 red meat production forecasts slightly while forecasting a slight increase in broiler production. Beef is now projected at 24.802 billion pounds, 75 million pounds less than in September. Cow slaughter is expected to be up; however, this will be offset by lower ste...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.