As Gary Blumenthal reported yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee held a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Brooke Rollins to be Secretary of USDA. As Gary noted, she “rolled” through the hearings “poised, confident, charming” and had done the groundwork as...
Rollins Rolled Poised, confident, charming - USDA Secretary-Designate Brooke Rollins hit the trifecta today at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee. She mostly just needed to show that she supported U.S. agriculture. After all, Donald Trump won over 98 percent of the...
Transatlantic Tariffication President Trump’s bromance with big tech billionaires has refocused his attention on Europe. The large penalties and regulatory hurdles being imposed by Brussels on America’s ANTMAMA (Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon) are being fram...
Ocean Freight Comments - 17 January 2025By Matt HerringtonIn the past month since WPI last provided our freight market commentary, dry bulk ocean freight rates have not done much at all. The holiday doldrums left markets to drift sideways/lower with slack cargo demand and little other excitemen...
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.