Rhetoric Meets Reality German Greens reacted to farmer angst by blaming supermarkets for suppressing prices. Canadian Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne liked that angle and similarly blamed his country’s retailers for food inflation. Major retailer Carrefour then blamed supplier PepsiCo for inflated prices. But the farmers in Europe are not blaming retailers, their complaint is about rising costs and EU environmental policies. The smarter politicians were not duped by the environmentalists. Newly installed French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has just announced that his country will take down bureaucracy and regulatory weight on farmers. The EU Commission announced that it would relax rules on land set-asides, and s...
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.