Potatoes have taken a dietary beating for being a basic starch that raises blood sugar as fast as pure glucose. By contrast, whole wheat contains complex starch, plus protein and some fiber. However, potatoes may have high bioavailability of certain vitamins and minerals, plus other health benefits. Moreover, mixing potato with protein, fiber and even fat will reduce the relative carbohydrate load. Over the past decade or so, global production of potatoes has expanded by 1.03 percent per year. By contrast, the CAGR for global exports of fresh and frozen potato products has been over three times as much, 3.77 percent. On trend, eventually there will need to be a production response to match the demand growth, assuming domestic demand...
Grains posted strong gains today, putting the bulls firmly in the driver’s seat. There was no shortage of fuel for the move, with three W’s driving the rally: weather, war and worry. Weather: Cooler temperatures are temporarily easing stress across the Northern Plains and Midwest, b...
Key Takeaways: Global and U.S. cotton demand has struggled since the post-COVID-19 pandemic surge, which has left cotton prices drifting lower in the U.S. The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, along with their impact on global energy markets, could boost cotton demand...
Key Takeaways: Persistent labor shortages are increasing operational challenges and costs across U.S. agriculture, particularly in labor-intensive sectors such as specialty crops, dairy, and meat processing. Immigrant workers, including H-2A employees, remain essential to the agricultural work...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.