World Perspectives

Ag Market Perspective on May Jobs Report

The May jobs data came out; there was an increase in private payrolls of 559,000 jobs. At any other time, other than post COVID era, that would be bullish news for the economy and the equities market. Instead, it was bearish. The expectation was 675,000 jobs, and we are still 7.6 million jobs down from where the economy was pre-COVID. There’s much discussion about federal unemployment benefits whether they are creating a hurdle to hiring. The math is simple: compared to the last pre-pandemic month, February 2020, average hourly earnings are up 6.4 percent; total hours worked are down 3.6 percent.   Agriculture is seeing an impact across the board with meat and poultry plant workers, transportation, loading dock and warehou...

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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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