World Perspectives

Vilsack’s Baiting Rhetoric

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack reportedly is asking farm groups how many farmers and how much farmland have gone away since 1981. He then cites the number of farmers lost as 437,100 and farmland as 141 million acres. He’s asking farm leaders if they are “okay” with those losses? First, farm groups should tell Secretary Vilsack that he’s the leader of their pack and he has thousands of experts working for him at USDA. How many farmers and how much farmland does he think there should be? Does he think the Biden Administration’s environmentalist supporters want 141 million acres brought back into production? Does he think farmers should forgo technology in order to justify boosting their labor share by 50 percent?&nbs...

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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.

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