Proponents hope to move a bill in the U.S. Congress that extends 52 tax credits that are under a philosophical attack by opponents who deem them to be corporate welfare. Single Food Safety Agency The Obama administration has proposed consolidating some of the 15 different federal agencies involved regulating food safety into a single entity, and legislation has also been introduced. Bloat and redundancy are well-known side effects of piecemeal legislating over time, but there is another side to this interpretation. More prevalent is a stove-piping of highly differentiated expertise. Moving meat safety inspectors from USDA to Health and Human Services does not eliminate the need for them.Moreover, a single umbrella agency does not guarante...
What You Need to Know Today: A third U.S. border crossing (Columbus, New Mexico) has reopened to Mexican cattle imports following nearly two years of restrictions related to New World screwworm. The reopening could gradually improve feeder cattle availability, although more than 60 confi...
Yesterday, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) released a new report of negotiated cash purchases of cattle under the mandatory price report. The report included Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. The goal of the report was to solve the confidentiality issues e...
Key Takeaways: U.S. soybean crushing began in 1911 and saw its most rapid expansion during the 1930s amid the broader agricultural and technology revolutions of the time. After peaking in the early 2000s, the soybean crushing industry went through a downturn as poor crush margins forced...
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.