The potential new trend now is land rights, or at least land acquisition. While not a primary issue for U.S agriculture yet, it is a new, complicating factor on the horizon.Over the past several months, we have periodically discussed the trends in consumer demands for food products, usually as applicable to meat. The major ones have centered on battery cages for layers, gestation stalls for swine, antibiotics for livestock, etc. The potential new trend now is land rights, or at least land acquisition, which we have already seen on a small scale in fair trade coffee. However, Oxfam (an NGO) targeted food and beverage companies late last year for buying tropical commodities, primarily sugar and palm oil, from plantations that exploited proper...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
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.