Biden Implications to Phase One At this juncture, China needs soybeans, corn and other products, and the U.S. is currently the lowest cost supplier of some agricultural commodities. However, one question is how faithful will China be to Phase One purchasing obligations when other suppliers become more competitive? How faithful will they be to an agreement forced upon them by Donald Trump if Joe Biden wins the election next month? Beijing purchased from South America when it was cheaper despite the Phase One agreement, and they could just rip up the agreement after 3 November. Or it could just be left as a relic and a reminder of another failure by Mr. Trump – an agreement as hollow for U.S. agriculture as the one he negotiated last y...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes, with the U.S. hitting Iranian bridges, energy sites, and military infrastructure. Iran launched a missile into Kuwait that damaged a desalination plant. Crude oil futures surged on heightened Middle East tensions, providing supp...
Key Takeaways: The EU heatwaves have coincided with key maize crop reproductive timing and featured high nighttime temperatures, a cruel two-sided blow to maize yields. France, much of western Europe, and Hungary have suffered the worst of the heat, with yield potential collapsing. WPI&r...
Congress returned this week from its Fourth of July recess, with another break scheduled for the month of August, to face a busy agenda before adjourning for the August recess. Congress has several priorities, including the National Defense Authorization Act, a potential third reconciliation pa...
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.