Food as National Security Journalists like Greg Ip and Noah Smith have identified the West’s trifecta of tools to counter China: industrial policy, export controls, and tariffs. They note another needed factor, unified western economics, but acknowledge it is difficult to achieve. Other factors mentioned include AI, drones, and the overall military strength. Left out of the equation is any mention of food. U.S. farmers have asked the Biden Administration to leave food out of the fight with Beijing, but they will still be collateral damage. Now European farmers are realizing that they too will fall victim when Brussels imposes tariffs on Chinese made EV’s. But food sales to China by both the U.S. and Europe have already d...
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.