Everyone knows China loves pork, but its new affinity is dairy. Throughout Chinese history, dairy was mostly associated with nomadic tribes, like the dreaded Mongolians. Cattle were work animals used to plow the fields. It had a less sophisticated reputation. This historical view of dairy consumption led to a lactose intolerance level at over 80 percent of the population. This contrasts with historical dairy consuming nations like Denmark and Ireland where it is 4 percent. Over the past 10 years, China’s dairy imports have been growing at a CAGR of 10.26 percent, versus a rate of 1.41 percent for the rest of the world (see graph below). So, what caused the turnaround? The Chinese government has been promoting dairy as a healthy...
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.