Selective Application The EU proposed a new regulation requiring due diligence on the part of companies marketing specific products (soybeans, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa and coffee derived products such as leather, chocolate and furniture) that were not derived from newly deforested geographies. Some environmentalists believe the requirement should apply to the Cerrado savannah and peatlands as well. Unsurprisingly, the Brazilian government is unimpressed and views it as a bit of Old-World hypocrisy. After all, Europe was mostly forested following deglaciation as shown by pollen and fossil records. As in Brazil, anthropogenic deforestation accelerated around 1400 years ago due to the expansion of Neolithic agriculture. Brazil would note...
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.