Part of this week's ninth round of TTIP negotiations, yesterday's public session in New York, had American activist groups acting like their transatlantic counterparts. TTIP may help other sectors, but U.S. agriculture's good sense would be to quit the talks now. TTIP Pretense "The top five agricultural exports from the US – soybeans, corn, beef, chicken and pork – are kept out of the EU through a variety of wrong-headed objections about GMOs, growth hormones and cleansing processes." That is not the venting of U.S. trade negotiators but the admonishment of Europe's own Financial Times newspaper. European officials say they will not budge on these issues at the same time they plead for recognition of their consumer-gouging geographical in...
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.