World Perspectives

Pivotal May 10th; Socialist Agriculture; Cost of Diversity

Pivotal May 10th Markets this Friday have two metrics to watch: the WASDE and Donald Trump’s tariffs on the Chinese. His threat to substantially ramp up the trade war with China if there is no deal by Friday initially crashed Wall Street, but it mostly recovered. The FTSE in Europe closed higher, but the Shanghai and Hang Seng markets saw substantially larger losses. The good news is that the U.S.-Chinese trade dispute could end by Friday, but the bad news is that it could get much worse.   Socialist Agriculture U.S. Democrats running for president in 2020 complain about the adverse impact of Mr. Trump’s tariff wars but are hard pressed to say that they prefer to treat China nicer. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-V...

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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.

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