Farming is like any other business that produces and sells goods and services. Its profitability depends on maximizing productivity, efficiency and economies of scale.We grew up in eastern South Dakota a long time ago when agriculture was not just the leading industry in the area, it was the only industry. The town we lived in was so big that it had two country grain elevators. There was an additional elevator in a tiny town about eight miles to the west and one in another very tiny town about 12 miles east. Within a 50-mile radius of where we lived there were at least 20 country elevators. The area was served by two rail lines. An east/west line ran through our town as well as a north/south line. Farms in our county probably averaged less...
What You Need to Know Today: Shipping in the Black Sea is at a standstill, with neither Ukraine nor Russia yet ready to swerve in this game of maritime and export brinkmanship. Israeli media suggests the U.S. and Iran may be close to making a deal or at least restoring the memorandum of unders...
Just when it seemed the restaurant industry had finally moved beyond the pandemic disruption, the arithmetic of the American food dollar caught up with it. The National Restaurant Association projects that total restaurant and foodservice sales will reach a record $1.55 trillion in 2026, but on...
Key Takeaways: Brazil’s pork exports have more than doubled since 2019 as competitive feed costs, ASF-free status, and expanding global demand have strengthened the country’s position in international markets. Brazil’s abundant domestic production of corn and soybeans provide...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.