After rising sharply in 2022, input costs remain stubbornly high yet today. At the same time, the prices received for major crops like corn, soybeans and wheat have fallen by as much as 30 percent over the same period. In response to these economic headwinds, Congress stepped up thr...
The bleeding didn’t stop, but it slowed down today. Although corn and soybeans were up in the overnight and opened that way this morning, it didn’t last. It has been a very bearish week, though the declines were much shallower today than in previous days. While soybeans and wheat we...
USDA released its quarterly Hogs and Pigs report today. The numbers were in line with pre-report expectations. The inventory of all hogs and pigs on 1 June was 75.1 million head. This was up slightly from 1 June 2024, and up 1 percent from 1 March 2025. Breeding inventory, at 5.98 million head...
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.