Ag as Microcosm Changes in U.S. farm size over recent years has witnessed an increase in the number of large, very profitable operations and an increase in the number of small farms, as the share considered medium-sized has been shrinking. The large farms produce the vast majority of commercial crops and reap most of the economic rewards. This dynamic is expressed as income inequality when the focus is average families in the overall economy. Some demand a policy solution, but analysis by the White House Council of Economic Advisors reveals that the phenomenon of income shifting away from labor and toward capital is occurring across dozens of rich and poor countries alike. Instead, the cause of this general economic shift is likely to...
What You Need to Know Today: U.S. weather is getting more attention this week as conditions vary greatly across the western, central, and eastern corn belts, with the different regions battling dryness and too much rain simultaneously. The ProFarmer Crop Tour began today in Indiana and Nebrask...
Key Takeaways: Argentina is on pace for a record corn crop and record exports in the current marketing year, with abundant supplies likely to keep the country highly competitive in global export markets. Argentina’s record exportable surplus is allowing it to offer highly competitive pri...
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.