On his trip to Asia, President Biden announced the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) for Prosperity, along with 12 countries in the region. The plan is structured to 1) establish rules governing trade in digital goods and services, 2) create commitments regarding supply chain to eliminate bottlenecks and develop early warning systems so problems can be identified before they occur, 3) establish pledges among participating countries to clean energy and decarbonization, and 4) end tax havens and corruption. For the past year-and-a-half, there has been a lot of speculation, educated guessing, and lobbying on the Biden trade strategy. Bilateral agreements, a priority of the Trump Administration, have largely been shelved – as...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.