More Subsidies for Scale The Biden Administration blames large meat packers for higher consumer prices. Its solution has been to subsidize the startup of small meat packers with grants (Value-Added Producer Grants) and loans. The program has been a smashing success. Over the past year the average retail price for beef is up 8.1 percent. Pork prices despite a reported oversupply, are up 0.8 percent. Retailers are offering livestock producers higher prices and small packers cannot keep up with the supply of animals being offered. The solution being pushed by smaller, populist farm groups like National Farmers Union and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association is more subsidies. They are backing new legislation called “The Strength...
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.