Rich versus Poor The IMF/World Bank meetings in Tokyo this week are providing some geopolitical and policy drama. China's refusal to send a top level official is a snub to Japan over their territorial spat. Brazil's Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, vented about more quantitative easing by the U.S. as a continuation of the global currency war, and said both Washington and Brussels should be using fiscal stimulus instead of austerity. However, his country's real trade problem is not northward, but westward: China.Separately, the FAO reported that the number of hungry in the world did not worsen as thought during the financial crisis (850 million instead of the earlier reported 1 billion). Carlos Sere of the International Fund for Agricultu...
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
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.