Macroeconomics Food Inflation Sees First Uptick Since May After five consecutive months of declines, food prices in the aggregate rose by 1.6 percent on an annual basis in November. The primary drivers of the increase were fresh vegetables and eggs, which saw their average prices rise by 30.6 percent and 17.6 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, the prices of fresh fruit and cooking oil advanced by 4.1 percent and 7.2 percent from their November 2020 averages. Pork prices, however, continued to slide, even with the rebound in live hog prices in November. Compared with a year ago, the average retail cost of pork fell by 32.7 percent, although that was substantially smaller than the 44 percent annualized decrease in October. Apa...
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.