Macroeconomics Food Prices Up Nearly 5 Percent In December For the ninth straight month, the average cost of food across various categories climbed. It was up 4.8 percent this past December from a year ago. That is up from the increase in November, which amounted to an annualized uptick of 3.7 percent. With hog prices seeing a sharp decline, the average price of pork meat rose year-on-year by 22.2 percent last month, which was down from a 34.4 percent rise in November. Fresh vegetables continued to decline, edging down 8 percent. In contrast, fresh fruit, milk, eggs, and cooking oils were up last month by 11 percent, 1.2 percent, 9.6 percent, and 7.2 percent, respectively. With food prices edging up, inflation on an annual basis ros...
From WPI Consulting
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.