Farm Bill Hurdle As predicted by WPI early this week (see here), the farm bill was voted down in the House today (198 213). Despite its failure, surprises included large majorities opposing efforts to end farm subsidies and support showing for the sugar supply management program. An effort four years ago to kill the sugar program came within five votes of passage, but it lost by 147 votes this time. House Democrats helped Republicans on key votes to protect farm programs, but they ultimately joined the conservative House Freedom Caucus members in voting down the bill. House Republican leaders are most likely to try and assuage the Freedom Caucus by making the food stamp provisions harsher on poor people, the goal being to strengthen the m...
What You Need to Know Today: USDA reports are delayed until Tuesday due to the federal holiday on Monday. Over the weekend, President Trump announced a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russia warmly welcomed and confirmed this ceasefire by conducting more strikes against Ukraine. Specific...
On Saturday, 10 October, at a campaign rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, President Trump said that the U.S. and Mexico would come to terms on a new trade deal, and he said Canada does not need to be part of the deal. Trump called the coming agreement with Mexico “great” but gave no d...
Key Takeaways: The United States has steadily lost global wheat export market share since the 1970s, falling from the world's leading exporter to a projected fifth place in 2026/27. The rapid expansion of Black Sea wheat exports, driven by improved productivity and export infrastructure, has r...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.