Understanding Agribusiness and Advancing Policy Farmers are understandably anxious over low prices and now the excess moisture that has spring planting off to a slow start. The Ag Barometer survey of 400 producers indicates confidence that the trade war will be resolved in their favor is down to 71 percent. The ultimate tipping point may be this fall when harvest adds to the oversupply situation. However, hats off to Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker for pushing back on his primary opponents seeking to break up agribusinesses. Over this past weekend, Booker argued that politicians naming specific companies for dismantling were being Trumpish and not exercising the role of presidents. He correctly noted that antitrust is handle...
What You Need to Know Today: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva secured reelection on Sunday, defeating right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro despite trailing in the first round of voting. The surprise victory triggered a sharp selloff in Brazilian financial market...
The 2026 midterm elections are a week from tomorrow, but early voting has been taking place for weeks. At stake is control of Congress, including the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are contested, and the Senate, where approximately one-third of the seats are up for election. Farm...
Key Takeaways: Total U.S. crop acres (excluding hay) are forecast to expand fractionally this year due to greater oilseed crop and winter wheat plantings. One of the key drivers of this year’s crop outlook is input costs, and crops with a lower cost profile have an advantage in producers...
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.