Macroeconomics Food Prices Down Again in September The impact of cratering live hog prices in September showed up in the recent monthly data release from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. With pork prices falling for the fourth consecutive month, the average cost of food fell by 5.2 percent from a year ago. On an annual basis, pork prices were down 46.9 percent, while fresh vegetables dropped by 2.5 percent. Fresh fruit was down by .8 percent. In slight contrast, prices for cooking oil, dairy products, and eggs continued to rise but at a slower pace compared with recent months with gains of 6.5 percent, 1.6 percent, and 12.6 percent, respectively. In October, however, shortages of electricity and roaring producer p...
What You Need to Know Today: There has already been a strong run of flash soybean sales announcements in recent weeks, but more than 1.4 MMT reported this morning is an exceptionally large single-day total with major implications for the market. If the sales to China and unknown destinations w...
On Friday, at 6:57 AM, President Donald Trump announced, via a social media post, a 90-day window during which up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef could be imported outside of tariff-rate quotas—a move aimed at bringing down costs for American consumers. This is the secon...
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.