The European Commission's Trade and Investment Barriers Report 2014 takes issue with the U.S. approach of approving meat inspection equivalency on a country-by-country basis. However, the EU itself flunks this test. Climate Change Skewing Both sides in the climate change debate take liberties with data and their prognostications. An article in Global Change Biology asserts that the size of fish in the North Sea has declined due to warmer water, while giving less emphasis to the effects of intensive commercial fishing. Yet, some estimates indicate that 87 percent of the world's fish stocks have been seriously depleted from overfishing and that fish for food must shift to aquaculture. On the other side of the debate, the National Center for...
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...
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.