No Political Hack The U.S. Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Dr. Julie Callahan to become the U.S. agricultural trade ambassador. The appointment is notable because Callahan does not come from Capitol Hill or other warrens of political expediency when it comes to powerful jobs. She has slogged it out mostly as a competitive civil servant in various agencies. Her STEM background makes her more technically proficient than most, but she is concurrently approachable, a powerful combination that that USTR Jamison Greer clearly recognized. U.S. senators have a lot of angst over Trump trade policy and particularly how it impacts their farmers. Callahan’s responses were adroit. On China, she said the U.S...
What You Need to Know Today: The hot, dry weather forecast continues to drive strength in grain futures with corn and soybeans hitting another day of strong gains. Monday’s Crop Progress and Conditions data were in line with market expectations and showed relatively few concerns for the...
Yesterday we wrote about the Q1 GDP numbers and the June employment reports in an article entitled Real GDP for Q1 Relying on AI Buildout, Held Back by Consumer Spending. That article mentioned that consumer spending had become a drag on GDP. Nonetheless, real GDP in Q1 was revised upward to 2...
Key Takeaways: The Middle East and North Africa's arid climate and limited water resources have created a structural dependence on imported wheat. Government wheat tenders in major importing countries serve as important benchmarks for global trade, providing insight into exporter competitivene...
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.