Some members of the U.S. Congress want more support going to fruits and vegetables. They note that the overwhelming majority of farm bill income support and risk management subsidies go to grains and oilseeds. California dominates U.S. production of fruits and vegetables, accounting for 70 percent of the total, with other Western states like Washington, Oregon and Arizona also specializing in these crops. More could be grown in the Midwest. U.S. production of vegetables is declining (see below). Production of non-citrus fruits increased in 2021 but fell again in 2022. Meanwhile, imports of fruits and vegetables are increasing, mostly from Mexico and the north and western parts of South America. Imports from Mexico are up 12.5 percent over...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. and Chinese officials are expected to discuss agriculture and non-tariff trade barriers ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month, potentially opening the door to additional U.S. agricultural purchases or improved marke...
The U.S. will observe Labor Day on Monday, 7 September. U.S. markets and the WPI office will be closed that day. The next edition of Ag Perspectives will be published Tuesday, 8 September...
Key Takeaways: Drought and changes to the multi-year trend in cow slaughter and retention have the potential to dramatically alter beef trim supplies and pricing, and WPI specifically models three different drought scenarios for fall 2026. Based on our models, WPI expects 90 percent lean...
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.