WTO Bad/Good/Indifferent Bad: The U.S. Congressional Research Service has concluded that trade war payments and COVID relief payments to farmers have likely exceeded WTO limits on such cash transfers. U.S. officials retort that that they are legal. However, the real problem is that the U.S. has not been notifying Geneva of its cash transfers to farmers for the past couple of years. Since the U.S. has made a big issue about other WTO members failing to meet their notification obligations, this is at least hypocritical. If the payments are legal, why not report them? Good: The U.S. correctly complained in Geneva this week that the WTO has spent money on an effort to track members’ compliance with United Nations’ adopted sustaina...
What You Need to Know Today: The September Cattle on Feed report was strongly bullish, with both the 1 September on-feed inventory and August placements coming in well below average expectations and below the bottom of their respective pre-report estimate ranges. China continues to buy U...
USDA’s September cattle on feed report was released Friday, with the total number of cattle in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity amounting to 11.2 million head, 101 percent of last year. Placements dropped in August to their lowest total for the month since records began in 1996...
Key Takeaways: The U.S. herd is stabilizing, but growth remains modest. Total goat inventory rose 1 percent in 2026, while meat-goat numbers increased 2 percent, which is not enough to materially reduce import dependence. Domestic slaughter is rising from a low base. Commercial slaughter incre...
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.