WTO Litigation Up: The number of dispute settlement cases filed at the WTO has skyrocketed, forcing the organization to reassign staff to deal with the workload. Dispute volume usually correlates to trade volumes, which means the latest litigiousness may reflect a new plateau for this process.Border Violations Up: U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that the number of violations and penalties were up in fiscal year 2012. However, the agency intercepted slightly fewer quarantine materials (i.e., plant material, animal products and byproducts, and soil), forwarded fewer pest interceptions to USDA and had a lower number of actionable pest interceptions than in 2011.No to TPP: Within hours of Japan's election results being announced ye...
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.