World Perspectives

Recession and Farm Income

The Purdue University/CME Group’s Ag Economy Barometer survey of farmers in March showed their economic sentiment dropping 47 points (28 percent), the largest one-month fall ever in the five-year old index. Farmers went through a two-year trade war that saw their exports to their largest market, China, drop but they maintained a positive viewpoint. The COVID-19 crisis has farmers fearful, but should they be? The U.S. and global economies are going into a recession of a yet unknown depth and duration. However, the impact on farm income is unclear. During the eight years out of the last 60 in which the U.S. economy had negative GDP growth, the net cash income earned by farmers fell in half of those years but rose in the other half. The...

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U.S. Soybean Crush Margin Outlook

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From WPI Consulting

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.

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