Macroeconomic Cost of Food Surges Courtesy of a 46.7 percent rise in retail pork prices, China’s food inflation jumped by 10 percent in August on an annualized basis. This is the biggest monthly increase in the cost of food since January 2012. It also marks the seventh straight month that food prices have risen above their 2018 levels. Heading into the annual Moon Harvest Holiday and then the all-important National Day week-long celebrations, ongoing price increases in cooking oil, vegetables, fruit, other meat and fish, as well as pork, will have a dampening impact on consumer sentiment, particularly if China’s quarterly GDP continues to slow. Livestock All-Time Record Live Hog Price Since surpassing the...
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.