There is good news this week regarding the number of PEDv cases during the latter part of March, and there is seemingly some hog market reaction. PEDv Update; Hogs and Pigs Report We provided an update in last week's Livestock Roundup on the number of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv) cases across the country as well as in Canada and Mexico. The good news this week is that there has been a slight downturn in that number during the latter part of March, according to the National Pork Board's veterinarian and vice president of Science and Technology, Dr. Paul Sundberg. The better news is that this trend is expected to continue as the virus doesn't thrive in heat or dry weather. That characteristic, together with the increased biosecuri...
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...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
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.