G-20 Ag Plan In contrast to the Rio+20 meeting last week, G-20 members meeting in Mexico agreed to an actual plan for boosting food security in poor countries. It involves boosting smallholder on-farm storage capacity, biocontrol of aflatoxin problems in maize, and market development efforts for vitamin A fortified maize. It had better be clever market development for the transgenic vitamin A maize. Vitamin A fortified transgenic "Golden Rice" has been available for years but hasn't been sown due to opposition by environmental groups and anti-globalists. African nations have become more open to GM, with Uganda the latest to signal its interest. Multilateralism Decline With the Doha negotiations stalled and new bilateral or regional tra...
Key Takeaways: President Trump announced $8 billion in additional agricultural assistance through the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, as USDA projects farm fuel and oil expenses will increase 28.8 percent in 2026. The package follows $12 billion in earlier relief, while government farm payments w...
Key Takeaways: A student group from the University of Chicago is protesting to bring back onion futures trading. Trading in onion futures was banned in 1958 following a spectacular bout of market manipulation that resulted in a corner of the physical market. The ban on onion futures led t...
Beef packer margins deteriorated to $141/head last week, down $55 from the prior week as fed cattle prices strengthened while the Choice cutout remained nearly unchanged. The cutout held near $373/cwt while fed cattle prices climbed $4/cwt to $224/cwt, narrowing processor profits. Despite the d...
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.