New Zealand famously is a country with more sheep than people, but the competition is slipping in favor of humans. The problem is the economics of wool, which is no longer an economically supportive coproduct. Wool is less needed in a warming world with many man-made alternative fibers, and landowners make more money converting grasslands to carbon credit paying forests. Wool production in New Zealand and in the rest of the world is in decline. While sheep meat output in New Zealand declines along with that of wool, global sheep meat has been expanding. However, it is falling behind the expansion rate of competing animal proteins such as poultry meat. Lamb consumption has always had a smaller group of fans, based on historic ge...
Key Market Insights Macros: Inflation isn’t cooling — it’s moving higher again. March PCE inflation (Personal Consumption Expenditures index — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation) rose 0.7 percent month-over-month, pushing the annual rate to 3.5 percent, the h...
An amendment to the U.S. House farm bill, aiming to remove the Save Our Bacon Act language in Section 12006 that would have stripped language to prohibit California’s Proposition 12, Massachusetts’ Question 3, and up to 500 state agricultural laws across the country, was blocked by...
What Matters Today... Fed holds rates steady as inflation uncertainty tied to the Iran conflict pressures equities and supports broader commodity risk premia Biofuel demand accelerating globally, with U.S. imports of used cooking oil and strong soyoil demand reinforcing upside across the soy c...
From WPI Consulting
Infrastructure investment due diligence
On behalf of a Canadian oilseed processer WPI's team provided market analysis, econometric modeling and financial due diligence in support of a $24 million-dollar investment in a Ukrainian crush plant. Consistent with WPI's findings, local production to supply the plant and the facility's output have expanded exponentially since the investment. WPI has conducted parallel work on behalf of U.S., South American and European clients, both private and public, in the agri-food space.