Proof of Principle for In Vitro Burger Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands served a hamburger last week in London that was cultured entirely in a lab. The ground beef was the product of growing 20,000 small strips of muscle tissue from four cows – two of which were organically raised. The project has been ongoing for five years and the burger was produced in three months. According to Professor Post, the burger is a "proof of principle" for such lab-produced foods. He predicted retail availability in 20 years. Animal welfare groups reacted with joy from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which hailed what it called "slaughter-free meat tha...
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...
Unlike the 2022 fertilizer shock, today’s disruption is rooted less in rerouted trade flows and more in damaged production capacity, raw material constraints and uncertain recovery timelines. That makes this a longer-duration risk for U.S. agricultural producers and retailers who must sec...
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.