Many are calling for paradigm shifts in most societal functions and a lot of changes are already happening, but government will slow farming’s ability to react. Food Retail: Over half the money families spent on food was for meals prepared away from home. Amid stay at home orders, food delivery has turned from a money-losing proposition to a necessity. Grocery stores have gone from an after-thought to one of the few places people can go and risk catching the virus. Large gatherings of people such as conventions and sporting events may not return for a year, meaning less demand for everything from hot dogs to banquet-sized rib roasts. Sneeze guards will not be enough to save salad bars. Food retail may be the hardest hit by the crisis...
Key Takeaways: Export sales measure new commitments for future delivery, while export inspections provide a timelier gauge of grain that is physically moving through the export system. Sales and inspections often diverge from week to week because they measure different stages of the export pro...
What You Need to Know Today: The Brazilian real surged to start the week after a surprise election result in which right-wing Flavio Bolsonaro won the first round of the election. The swing in the U.S. dollar/Brazilian real (USD/BRL) exchange rate caused soybeans to jump sharply higher in earl...
Key Takeaways: Harvest pressure is fundamentally a timing issue: supply arrives much faster than demand can adjust, creating temporary weakness that can occur across crops and regions. The intensity of that pressure depends less on crop size alone than on how quickly grain moves into the syste...
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.