World Perspectives

Energy and Food Lessons; Implications of Ukraine; Omicron Buys WTO Time

Energy and Food Lessons Energy and food prices are spiking at the same time policy reform advocates are seeking wholesale changes in the production of both resources. Already policymakers in Europe are having to consider using more natural gas and nuclear energy than originally envisioned in their march to carbon neutral. The FAO issued notice today that its food price barometer is up 27.3 percent this year and is the highest since June of 2011. With food prices expected to stay high in 2022, this could also force a slow-walk on the path to greater sustainability in food production as well.  Implications of Ukraine Russia has staged more than 100,000 troops plus equipment on the border with Ukraine and threatens to invade if NATO ma...

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WASDE Corn - Jan 2026

USDA’s Jan estimate for 2025/26 U.S. corn is for larger production and higher feed residual usage to result in greater ending stocks: Corn production is estimated at 17.0 billion bushels, up 269 million on a 0.5-bushel increase in yield to 186.5 bushels per acre and a 1.3-million acre ris...

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From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

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