World Perspectives

PNW Heatwave Impacts

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the U.S. is suffering drought and a heatwave rarely seen in recent history. The white wheat crop has been damaged for sure but so have the specialty crops that are unique to the region. Fresh apples, pears, cherries, and berries are all believed to have suffered under the harsher than normal conditions.   Nationally, around 20 percent of apple, cherry, and pear production is exported. This means that prices will be up, and exports will likely be lower. Some say this will be a longer-term trend under climate change. If true, then investments in irrigation will likely have to rise. Irrigation can be insurance against failed natural precipitation, but it is not cheap. It can cost thousands of dollars p...

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WASDE Wheat - Feb 2026

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From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

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