The recent volatility in lean hog futures — from fresh contract highs at the end of January to the dramatic early-February selloff — has many in the industry (and WPI clients) wondering what will happen next. WPI’s latest analysis indicates that while pork demand remains stron...
During the State of the Union (SOTU) address, President Trump made several claims about food prices, citing reductions in costs to consumers. Food inflation is a major issue for voters, and the President is hyper-focused on beef prices in particular prior to the 2026 mid-term elections. The fin...
With soybean and soy product exports frequently in the headlines amid the ongoing tariff and policy shifts from Washington, examining export trends is increasingly important. Thursday’s updated Export Sales report from the USDA offered some interesting statistics for these markets, and WP...
Fuzzy Math Among President Trump’s various assertions in last night’s State of the Union address was that tariffs would someday replace the income tax, but that is a mathematical impossibility. The value of imported goods is around $3 trillion, and the income tax generates nearly $5...
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.