Climate change is being blamed for drought limited grain crops this year, but tree nuts are a better example. Weather has caused volatility in grain markets for ions. In Genesis, Joseph saves the Egyptians during a distressed crop year by releasing grain from the stores he maintained. Variable monsoons, La Niña/El Niño and other weather phenomenon predate the current climate change challenge when it comes to growing grain. However, the real threat from climate change is the highly concentrated tree nut supply. Most of the world’s major tree nuts are grown in California and exported from the U.S. China is the largest producer of walnuts, but the U.S. exports more of them and it produces and exports most of the world&rsqu...
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.