Lessons from Tai Everyone that knows Katherine Tai was excited for her nomination to become U.S. Trade Representative and were confident in her confirmation. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate today by a vote of 98 to 0, the only one of President Biden’s Cabinet officers to achieve unanimous support from an often bitterly divided legislature. Unlike other nominees, she had no track record of ugly partisan tweets. Instead, she built a professional reputation based on intelligence and humility. It is a lesson that should be absorbed by many others in Washington. The political system is not broken but as Secretary of State Antony Blinken observed in a Nikkei interview, it sometimes doesn’t look very pretty and that provides succ...
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.