A few items likely to be covered tonight in the SOTU that are of more direct interest to agriculture are the proposed treatment of capital gains in the president's vision for tax reform as well as both parties' ideas for trade expansion.President Obama will deliver his sixth State of the Union (SOTU) speech this evening. He is expected to take advantage of the growing economy and outline an agenda targeted at "making every American feel part of the country's comeback." The president has toured the U.S. in a number of appearances pre-SOTU and will take the post-address message to Idaho and Kansas. The White House communications operation is also poised to exploit social media as a means to keep up momentum. The president met last week with D...
What You Need to Know Today: The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.75 to 4.0 percent Wednesday, with two officials dissenting in favor of a 25-basis-point increase. The Fed upgraded its assessment of economic growth from "solid" to "strong" but adopted a more patient approa...
Key Takeaways: Expected growth in U.S. soybean crushing capacity and output, driven by biofuel demand, will increase domestic soymeal supplies, with production growth significantly outpacing demand. WPI forecasts soymeal production increasing from 65.8 million short tons in 2026/27 to 70.5 mil...
WPI Grain Prices and Freight Rate App Note: you can also visit the app directly by clicking here. Supplemental Information The section below offers a concise view of the options available in the current version of the WPI FOB Price and Freight Rate app, along with a short “How To”...
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.