No “Great” Fixes The Trump Administration is seeking large changes at the WTO and in China but neither are likely to materialize. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will arrive in Washington this week for trade negotiations, but a Bloomberg story says that he has no concessions to offer on industrial policy or government subsidies. The refusal comes amidst a new report (Innovative China) published jointly by the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council arguing that GDP will slow if the reforms are not undertaken. Like the Bank’s predecessor 2012 report, China 2030, the latest iteration warns that GDP will inevitably slow if the ongoing misallocation of capital is not corrected. But President...
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
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.