World Perspectives

Friday Policy Shorts

Standards not Tariffs: The complaint against China and some other countries is that production practices are more highly distorted by government policies than in the West. The Biden Administration and former President Donald Trump look to tariffs to solve the problem. By contrast, the EU erects nontariff border measures to address such externalities, such as its EUDR (deforestation) and CBAM (carbon) policies to block imports that are not produced equivalently with its domestic rules. Tariffs are simpler, and more straight forward, but less precise in addressing the actual problem.  Skinny Pigs: An EU study on reducing dependence on imported protein meals calls for more coupled support (e.g. oilseed subsidies) directed at the 7.8 mill...

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Transportation and Export Report - 13 February 2026

U.S. grain transportation markets are slowly recovering from the shocks of bitter cold weather and low water levels on the Mississippi River System and from the surge in export demand. The latter is also causing strong rallies in ocean freight markets, particularly in the Atlantic basin. With g...

Sovereignty and Competitiveness; USMCA Battle

Sovereignty and Competitiveness So-called food sovereignty has animated European politics for decades. Now there is AI sovereignty because English is annoying or a national security risk. Taxes, regulations, and fines are thrown at dominant foreign companies to the point that Bloomberg says som...

A Year in Review: Impact of Tariffs on Agricultural and Food Processing Machinery

We now have nearly a year of data to work with on the impact of the Trump Administration’s tariffs.  When they were first announced, there was quite a bit of conjecture and some sophisticated economic analysis about how trade flows would be impacted. This brief analysis will focus br...

Transportation and Export Report - 13 February 2026

U.S. grain transportation markets are slowly recovering from the shocks of bitter cold weather and low water levels on the Mississippi River System and from the surge in export demand. The latter is also causing strong rallies in ocean freight markets, particularly in the Atlantic basin. With g...

Sovereignty and Competitiveness; USMCA Battle

Sovereignty and Competitiveness So-called food sovereignty has animated European politics for decades. Now there is AI sovereignty because English is annoying or a national security risk. Taxes, regulations, and fines are thrown at dominant foreign companies to the point that Bloomberg says som...

A Year in Review: Impact of Tariffs on Agricultural and Food Processing Machinery

We now have nearly a year of data to work with on the impact of the Trump Administration’s tariffs.  When they were first announced, there was quite a bit of conjecture and some sophisticated economic analysis about how trade flows would be impacted. This brief analysis will focus br...

wheat

WASDE Wheat - Feb 2026

USDA’s outlook for 2025/26 U.S. wheat is unchanged for exports and slightly higher ending stocks to 931 million bushels - 9 percent higher than last year and the largest since 2019/20. The projected 2025/26 season-average farm price remains at $4.90 per bushel.  The global outlook fo...

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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.

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