Another Bailout Package for Sugar Sector The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a third package to bail out the sugar industry. Worth $758 million, it includes a freight subsidy for sugar exports of up to 5 MMT and $1.89/MT on cane crushed in 2018/19. The first package, valued at $1.16 billion, was announced in June 2018 and included loans at a lower rate of interest. The second package provided soft loans for investment in ethanol production facilities, a higher ethanol price for blending and the storage cost for 3 MMT of sugar. 2017/18 has been an unprecedented sugar year (October-September). Due to high production of 32 MMT, stable demand at 25-26 MMT and higher carryover stocks, the sugar industry was unable to...
Key Market Insights Macros: Inflation isn’t cooling — it’s moving higher again. March PCE inflation (Personal Consumption Expenditures index — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation) rose 0.7 percent month-over-month, pushing the annual rate to 3.5 percent, the h...
An amendment to the U.S. House farm bill, aiming to remove the Save Our Bacon Act language in Section 12006 that would have stripped language to prohibit California’s Proposition 12, Massachusetts’ Question 3, and up to 500 state agricultural laws across the country, was blocked by...
WPI has officially launched Transportation Perspectives as a standalone weekly report separate from our Ag Perspectives articles and analysis. Current Ag Perspectives subscribers will have gratis access to the report through 16 April 2026. Please email us or subscr...
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.