Sacrificing the Future The ASPCA has announced $100,000 in grants for its Fund to End Factory Farming. Like others in the small is better camp, the result of their ambition would be a much worse off world. Solving issues like climate change, food security and clean water will require immense amounts of technology only developed via scale. Large companies are investing in artificial intelligence that will fuel synthetic biology as a solution to everything from plastic waste to turning CO2 into fertilizer. Small, nostalgic farms and local processors do not have the capital to pay for such solutions. Returning farming to the past will not solve the problems of the future. Anti-industrial agriculture is the anti-future. Phosphorus Paradox Ph...
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.