Machinery Romanticism Expanding the manufacturing sector in the U.S. has been the rallying cry of some politicians. They are calling for tax incentives on the basis that the sector creates more jobs than other ventures do. Susan Lund of McKinsey Global Institute counters that factories are increasingly automated and less the job creators they used to be. Others warn that the government divining how the economy should be structured will create new inefficiencies by directing capital away from its comparative advantage. The job market reflects the economy's actual needs, which is for labor with higher and different skill sets than in the past. The agriculture sector is quite familiar with the problem of romanticists clinging to a vision of...
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...
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.