Sustainability has become an important attribute for agricultural systems with many activists falsely asserting that extensive farming has a smaller environmental footprint. Now research by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (ICTA), an organization focused on making small farms in developing countries both competitive and sustainable, has issued ratings that favor the larger, intensive agricultural practices of rich countries.
What is notable is that India’s agriculture ranks amongst the least sustainable systems despite being largely vegetarian in consumption and highly incentivized for extensive farming practices. CIAT weighed 20 different factors including greenhouse gas emissions, fair trade, food price volatilit...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: The tariff burden rose sharply in 2025 and 2026: the effective rate on imports in HTS Chapters 1–24 increased from 1.53 percent in 2024 to 6.11 percent in 2025, before averaging 5.68 percent in January–August 2026. Headline rates tell only part of the story: exemptio...
