Ag Gag The Iowa legislature has passed a bill called "ag gag" by opponents that would make it a crime for animal activists to surreptitiously gain employment for the purpose of videotaping animal welfare. The Center for Food Integrity has the goal of serving as an authenticator of such videotapes, but it requires seeing the taped portions before and after those released by the animal campaigners. The released portion is often taken out of context and animal campaigners are unlikely to give up anything that undermines their message. Agribusinesses can adopt sustainability, core values and corporate responsibility; they can throw out the gestation crates, the battery cages and give every animal a pillow, but it will not slow the anti-conve...
What You Need to Know Today: Declining crop conditions ratings and shaky results from the Pro Farmer crop tour sent grains sharply higher on Tuesday. The Pro Farmer tour in Ohio pegged the state yield at 180.18 BPA, about 5.5 BPA below the tour’s 2025 estimate. Similarly, the Pro Farmer...
Based on a Depression-era statute, President Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion of exports to the U.S., or about 5.2 percent of the $383 billion worth of goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Of that total, about $39.3 billion was agricu...
Key Takeaways: Brazil’s growing role in global agriculture is accompanied by a major vulnerability: the country imports approximately 88 percent of its fertilizer needs. High natural gas costs and development challenges have limited domestic nitrogen and potash production despite Brazil&...
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.