Geopolitics China's reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's recent remarks on a potential Taiwan crisis has been disproportionately harsh and overtly hostile as it tried to undermine her domestic political support. Beijing’s ban on seafood imports from Japan based on the Fuku...
No Steel for IT U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were in Europe suggesting the U.S. would relax restrictions on importing EU steel and aluminum if Brussels would remove restrictions on American IT. EU VP Teresa Ribera countered that, “The...
Mediterranean/Middle East/North Africa/Africa – MEA Region Iran remains the largest importer of Brazil maize at about 6.1 MMT followed by Egypt at about 5.3 MMT then Saudi Arabia at 1.5 MMT, Morocco at 1.1 MMT, Algeria at 1.0 MMT and Bangladesh at 770,000 MT. Brazil exported 29.6 MMT of m...
Beef packer margins rose for a third consecutive week, climbing $52/head to $115 and hitting the strongest profitability since mid-2023. The gain came amid a sharp $7.65/cwt decline in live cattle prices and continued firmness in the beef cutout. The spread between the cutout and fed cattle val...
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.