Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued by USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are updated. The new guidelines will be issued next year for 2025-2030. This guidance provides advice on what to eat and drink to meet nutrient needs, promote health, and prevent disease. It is developed and written for a professional audience, including policymakers, healthcare providers, nutrition educators, and Federal nutrition program operators. Federal feeding programs adhere to the guidelines. Increasingly, these guidelines have become more controversial, culminating in 2015 when the guidelines included sustainability and environmental goals, and failed to include any recommendation to include red meat in...
Key Takeaways: Despite little progress in a U.S.-Iran framework for a peace deal or an agreement itself, vessel transits are picking up in the Strait of Hormuz (SOH). On Wednesday morning, Kpler reported 31 verified vessel transits of the SOH in a positive sign of increased activity in t...
Key Takeaways: Despite rising cost pressures — including the recent run-up in fuel and energy costs — U.S. cow-calf producers are facing another year of record-breaking revenues and net returns for 2026. Cost pressures — particularly non-feed variable costs — and...
Key Market Insights Outside markets dominated today’s session. Crude oil traded below $70 per barrel, the U.S. dollar climbed to a 13-month high, and both gold and silver posted sharp declines as traders increased expectations for additional Federal Reserve rate hikes. At the same time, t...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.