USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack will help host December's U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in Chicago. This will be an excellent opportunity for waging a serious, face-to-face challenge of Beijing's stalled biotech approval process. Korea the Worst U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker defended the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) for having delivered tangible results even though one of those is an even wider American trade deficit. On the whole, free trade agreements have tended to improve the U.S. trade balance. The problems, at least in agriculture, are the ones unaddressed by the KORUS such as the fact that Korea maintains the second-highest producer subsidies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and De...
What You Need to Know Today: Russia rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Black Sea, including a proposal to halt attacks on civilian shipping that could help restore grain flows from Ukrainian ports. Tyson Foods announced plans to permanently close its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing facili...
The big news in the cattle markets yesterday was Tyson Foods’ move to close two more beef plants. One of them, the Joslin, Illinois, plant was shuttered immediately after the announcement. The other, in Eagle Mountain, Utah, is a case-ready plant that does not slaughter cattle. Tyson also...
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday. In July, the CPI rose 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted, and rose 3.4 percent over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy, or the “core” infla...
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.