Twenty years ago, An Inconvenient Truth helped bring climate risk into the public foreground. Al Gore’s film and book contributed to a transformation in how climate change was understood, moving it from a largely scientific discussion into a broad political and cultural movement. Its influence contributed significantly to policies affecting agriculture, energy, and food processing that are still unfolding today. One year after the release of the film, the United States passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which established the framework for modern U.S. biofuel policy. The legislation received broad support from both farm and environmental groups and eventually evolved into a deeply embedded policy structure...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. dollar continued to strengthen Thursday as persistent inflation reinforced expectations for additional Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Higher Treasury yields have helped support the dollar, potentially reducing the competitiveness of U.S. agricultural...
In yesterday’s WASDE, USDA reduced its overall red meat and poultry production forecast for 2026 as declines in beef and broiler output more than offset increases in pork and turkey production. Fourth-quarter beef production was revised downward because of slower fed cattle marketings and...
Key Takeaways: Dry bulk freight markets were stronger this week, but the rally was uneven and due to divergent dynamics across basins and vessel classes. Panamax markets were broadly higher, but Atlantic grain demand was primarily responsible while Asian activity was subdued. That trend...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.